


Mixing Business and Pleasure

by pixiescanfly



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Alcohol, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Bad Guys Made Them Do It, Consent Issues, Cuddling & Snuggling, Demisexuality, F/M, Fuck Or Die, Guns, Handcuffs, Hurt/Comfort, Light BDSM, M/M, Multi, Non-Consensual Drug Use, OT3, Oral Sex, Polyamory, Rape/Non-con Elements, References to Prostitution, Sex Pollen, Sex for the Mission, Sexual Coercion, Threesome - F/M/M, Undercover as a Couple, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Violence, Virginity, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-04-23 13:40:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4878976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixiescanfly/pseuds/pixiescanfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Napoleon likes to think of sex as an easy way to get what he wants from his marks.<br/>Gaby does what she must for the mission and is learning to deal with the aftermath.<br/>Illya would much rather just break in, steal the data and skip all of this. </p><p>Or: Five times sex happened for the mission, and one time it didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Paris

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to my beta [raininglotus](http://archiveofourown.org/users/raininglotus/pseuds/raininglotus) for generally being awesome and also for fixing all of my many and varied tense-related problems.

Napoleon was used to it, really. Just another extension of his not unimpressive set of skills, just another way to draw in his marks and manipulate them to achieve his aims. He’s an expert in the art of seduction – men, women, the innocent and the experienced. He knows how to reduce them all to their basest instincts with just a few well-placed looks, looks that frequently and seemingly inescapably lead to touches and then to more. 

Sometimes he even enjoys himself. 

Not this time though. 

It wasn’t the first mark who’d wanted something rougher than he’d really intended. Not the first time he’d known that he would be struggling to move freely for the next few days, not the first time he’d had his hands tied like this; stretched out uncomfortably, handcuffs digging into his wrists hard enough that he’d have bruises circling his wrists in the morning. (And of course he knew that was her intention. She wanted to see him tomorrow, knowing that the barest sliver of material was all that hid her marks of ownership from his supposed fiancée sitting supposedly ignorant beside him). 

It wasn’t even the first time that he’s known they would be listening – Gaby, Illya, one or both of them, watching his back and keeping tabs on the intelligence that she might give up on her millionaire husband’s deal with the scientists they’ve been watching for the last few weeks. It’d happened before. Usually he’s utterly unashamed – enjoys needling Illya about it, asking if he’s picking up tips from all of the listening he does, taunting him until Gaby rolls her eyes and retorts on his behalf.

He usually descended into a state of careful blankness when they wanted it violent, wanted to hurt. This time, the presence of the listening device in the button of his jacket buzzed at the edge of his awareness, ever present in his thoughts, pricking him out of the blankness. He had carefully placed his jacket and the bug on the chair next to the bed when he arrived, expecting straightforward, vanilla, wanting to give his partners the best chance of picking up anything she might let slip. If he’d anticipated this, he would never have placed it close enough for them to hear the smack of the leather of her crop against his soft flesh, for them to hear the breath rush out of him with the shock of the pain. It had been a long time since he’d been surprised like this – misread so badly what his partner’s preferences would be. Perhaps it was because he had been so sure that her husband would never allow her this… but then maybe that was why she was straying elsewhere for her desires.

And that would have been fine. He could contend with a little violence if it was needed. He knew the arts of the flesh better than most, and he understood the appeal. What he couldn’t rely on, and was currently occupying at least half of his mind was the way his partners would respond. Gaby he hoped knew the fundamentals of this type of situation, but Illya on the other hand… Well, the KGB didn’t seem to favour the same kinds of interrogation methods as the CIA. Hell, he wouldn’t be surprised if Illya was a virgin. And the thought of letting someone hurt you with no retribution… Well, it was not the Russian way. 

When she’d pulled out the cuffs, his first thought had been the Russian agent’s reaction – would he think his partner was being attacked? Would he think less of Napoleon for ‘taking it like a pussy’ as he himself had put it? He put that thought of out his head. Unhelpful. 

“Ah, so your interests fall to pain, then, Madame?” He spoke in English and pitched his voice to carry, hoping against hope that Gaby was listening and would understand. 

“Oui, monsieur. C’est un problème?” Her eyes flashed dangerously.

“Quite the contrary, Madame. It’s an enticement.” He let his voice infuse with anticipation while his heart filled with resignation, speaking loud enough that whoever was listening (please let it be Gaby) could have no doubt he was agreeing to this, going into it with the complete knowledge of what was about to happen. He just had to hope that Illya realised that. 

So now he was lying there, completely at her mercy (he could pick the cuffs in seconds if he needed to), taking the blows (he’d had harder so many times before) and praying that he wasn’t going to have to contend with a severely pissed off KGB agent storming the room and killing her. It wasn’t exactly conducive to effective sex, but he’d performed under more adverse circumstances before.  
At least she was reasonably attractive. 

…

 _“Ah, so your interests fall to pain, then, Madame?”_ Solo’s voice was clear and calm over the radio speakers. Across the room, Gaby sat with one ear on the transmission, repainting her nails (again. She despised covers where she had to keep up the illusion that she didn’t spend her spare time ripping apart anything mechanical she could get her hands on) and Illya was once again hunched over a chess board contemplating…well, something, probably. Gaby dropped the nail paint and looked up, though, when she heard her partner’s cool statement over the radio link. 

That hadn’t been in the mission briefing. 

Her gaze flicked to Illya, wondering what they should do. Was Solo’s statement his call for extraction, or was it simply for their information? Indeed, the agent in her was reminding her that such information might prove vital, if only for blackmail at a later date. She tried to ignore the part of her that was screaming to storm right over there and rip that woman’s hair out for daring to make this harder for her partner. He always came back from this type of mission with a deadened look in his eyes which wouldn’t leave him for days afterwards, despite all of the teasing and flirting that he tormented them with in the meantime. 

_“Oui, monsieur. C’est un problème?”_ responded Mme. Devois’ lilting voice, softer than Solo’s, further away. And this was their chance. If Solo wanted extraction, he could say no. He could make an excuse. He could use any of the number of phrases that they had drilled time and again to mean that they were out of their depth and needed help. Gaby waited, listening intently. Across the room she noticed that Illya had looked up from his chess game and was glaring across the room at the speakers, as if they were the ones asking to hurt their partner. 

_“Quite the contrary, Madame. It’s an enticement.”_ Solo’s voice was radiating lust, but then she had heard him use the same tone while talking to sixty year old women, ex-Nazi torturers and once, memorably, a watermelon. She knew the apparent lust didn’t necessarily indicate anything about his level of excitement. But he hadn’t used an exit phrase, which meant that he was willing to go through whatever she had suggested for the sake of the mission, for the intelligence that he could gain from the free access to her husband’s documents this dalliance would give him. 

The sound of handcuffs clicking into place was unmistakeable. She swallowed. Intellectually, she knew that given half the chance he would be able to get out of any lock within seconds, but she didn’t like the thought of him restrained. 

It wasn’t until the first blow was struck that she noticed Illya. His hands had been tapping, but that was frequently the case when one of them was in the field and he was compelled to sit in safety and listen. Usually he could contain his frustration at the situation. 

This time, she was mistaking for frustration what was in fact his furious, violent rage. That is, until he stood, grabbed his gun and nearly made it to the door before she managed to scramble to grab him. He wheeled around to face her, murder in his eyes as the second strike echoed through the radio, this time accompanied by an exhalation that she tried her best not to think about. 

“Let go.” His accent was strong in his rage. If she didn’t know him, she’d be terrified. Hell, she was a little bit terrified even knowing him as well as she did.

“Where are you going? What are you going to do?” 

“I am going to kill her.” He answered like it was the simplest thing in the world. 

“You need to calm down. We’re in the middle of a mission. Solo needs to get on her good side so she invites him to the party with Dr Callaghan tomorrow night, remember?” Gaby had grabbed both of his wrists and was staring into his eyes, willing him to remember, to calm down and think rationally. 

“Cowboy’s cover is compromised. We must attempt extraction.” Dread flooded her stomach at his words. If Solo truly was compromised, they would have to fight their way through a lot of very intimidating people to get him out of there. 

“Why do you say that?”

“He is captured by the bored housewife. She attempts interrogation.” He said it like she was an idiot for even asking the question. She almost let go of him in shock. 

“You… think that’s what she’s doing?” she asked carefully. She didn’t really know where to start. 

“She is terrible torturer. Does not mean Cowboy’s cover is not blown.”

“Oh…Peril…” Gaby dropped his hands and sank back into her chair, putting both of her hands over her face. She tried not to hear the rhythmic smack of whatever it was that Solo was being hit with across the speakers as she attempted to figure out what to say. 

“Some people… for some people, it’s fun. It’s just the way they… you know… enjoy themselves. There must be sadists in Russia – people who find sexual enjoyment in the pain of others? It doesn’t mean she doesn’t like him. He’ll be absolutely fine. She’s not really trying to hurt him.” At least she hoped that’s what it was. It was a hell of a gamble if she had somehow caught their deception, but Solo was going along with it, and if anyone could read the air in a room it was him. She had to trust his judgement. 

“Is not the Russian way,” Illya answered stubbornly, still radiating tension. “Pain is for enemy. Not for… this.”

“Maybe, Peril, but it’s Cowboy’s mission to seduce her and he hasn’t called for backup, so let him get on with doing what he does.” He didn’t seem convinced, standing in the doorway, fingers tapping against his leg characteristically. A grunt of pain or maybe something else drifted over to the two of them. 

“Look, Peril, go and wait in the other room. Take your chess. I’ll keep listening and if Cowboy calls for backup, I promise I’ll come and get you and you can shoot whoever you want, okay? But until then can you please just trust me, and Cowboy, that he doesn’t need you to go in shooting people.” She resigned herself to some very awkward listening, and nudged the side of his knee with her toe. “Go on Peril. Trust us. Please.”

Thankfully, finally, he complied. Gaby watched him go and settled down with her bottle of nail paint, half-listening as the sounds of violence slowly melted into the familiar sounds of Solo’s heavy breathing punctuated by unfamiliar female moans. The urgency of earlier melted a little. She had been right. His cover wasn’t blown. He would be okay. It should probably worry her that she’d heard him having sex more times than she could really remember, but somehow, whether it was the importance of what he always gained from his conquests, or simply due to the light way that Solo himself forced them to treat the encounters, it had never been awkward between the three of them after. She hoped that tonight, Illya’s mistake, would not change that easiness. 

Although in future, she would make sure that she manned the radio alone for these types of missions. 

…

It was late when Solo got back. Very late. Gaby had almost dozed off on the sofa listening to Mme. Devois’ quiet insistence that he leave before her husband realised he had been there, and her invitation for Solo to come to the party the following evening. Her instruction to bring his ‘delectable fiancée’ was in a tone of voice that scared Gaby perhaps too much. 

He returned to their suite soon afterwards, trying to slip in quietly. Gaby sat up and raised her eyebrows at him. He looked rumpled, moving stiffly, but otherwise seemed unharmed. 

“Ah, I had expected you and Peril to have gone to bed by this time…” he addressed her, looking vaguely uncomfortable but layering the innuendo heavily. She could tell by now that it was protection over raw and rattled nerves. 

“I sent him to the other room. He… he didn’t understand. Thought your cover had been blown. Thought she was interrogating you. I explained.”

“Ah,” he responded. Neither of them seemed sure of what to say. 

“Do you need me to look at anything?” she asked, gesturing vaguely. “I’m told that I have medicinal hands.”

“Not in the mood for roleplay right now, thanks.” He smiled lecherously. “Maybe another time.”

She rolled her eyes and stood, crossing the room to stand directly in front of him, a parallel to her stance with Illya earlier. 

“Let me,” she said, gently taking his hands in hers. “Let me take care of you.”

And against all instinct, he nodded.

He didn’t know how she knew that after jobs like this his bones felt like they were going to rattle apart. Didn’t know how she knew that he needed someone there to ground him, to bring him back from the floating, empty and numb place that he’d finally managed to slip into when it had become clear the Red Peril wasn’t going to come slamming through the door at any minute. He didn’t know how she’d figured out he was struggling, but he was immensely grateful as he allowed himself to be led to the sofa. She took his tie off first, and then his jacket complete with its bugged pocket, and then the first button of his shirt. After removing his shoes she guided him to lie down, pulling his head into her lap as she carefully undid the buttons at his cuffs, pulling them away from the bruises blossoming across his skin. She reached carefully for the blanket that she had been curled up under before he arrived, pulling it over him and loosely draping it over his shoulders, wary of the bruising that she was sure lay beneath his shirt there. 

“Does this hurt?” she asked, carefully threading her fingers into his hair and stroking down the back of his neck. 

“No,” his answer is simple, monosyllabic as he lay there and relished the soft, pure, innocent touch replacing the pain and violence and guilt and grime of the past few hours. 

“Good,” she answered, and started humming softly, an old song that he was almost sure he recognised but couldn’t quite place. He fell asleep trying to remember how he knew the song.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> French Translation: "Yes, is that a problem?"


	2. Bratislava

The music in the club owned by their target was thumping, loud enough Gaby could feel it in her chest alongside her heart. She was sweating through the dress that Illya had chosen for her before they had come out. She couldn’t really remember when he had started choosing clothes for her to wear undercover, but he seemed to have an instinctive flair for the combination of presentation and practicality that neither she nor Solo could manage.

Tonight, for example, her dress was short enough that she could run and fight if necessary yet long enough to conceal the short knife and tracker he had strapped to her leg before they left, and also stylish enough that it did not draw attention in the up market club that they were infiltrating. It was also short enough that she was attracting a lot of unwanted attention from the various male patrons of the club that they were investigating. Nothing she couldn’t handle, but she’d had to use on of Illya’s patented Russian finger spraining techniques on one of the men’s wandering hands so far tonight. Their stares were making her uncomfortable. She longed to be back in their hotel room in her pyjamas with a glass of vodka in one hand, a Russian on one side and an American on the other.  

The sooner they got out of here, the better. But they had a job to do first.  She watched Solo as he made his way around the room expertly, lifting the wallets and searching the pockets of those men who’d been identified as contacts of the man who owned the club, looking for information before they began their search of the rooms upstairs. She took a sip of her martini, envying Illya his covert mission of investigating the factory owned by the same man who owned the club. At least he could wear comfortable clothing, and it would be reasonably quiet where he was.

Solo suddenly looked up and caught her eye, winking. That was the signal. It was time. She set down her martini and waited, feeling the music thumping through her chest as he approached her, leant close and whispered in her ear.

“You ready?” he asked. He had his mask of seduction firmly in place, and she focused on seeming slightly giddy, slightly drunk, and totally under his spell as he drew her into his arms. He steered them onto the dance floor, arms wrapping closely around her while staying well away from her legs and her ass, where strangers saw an opportunity, an invitation. She leaned into his chest, dropping her head onto his shoulder as the music washed over her. She felt his heart beating. This was his world. She would follow his lead.

They danced for a while, pressed close together, fingers skimming, electric. Long enough that they were seen by anyone who cared to look. (And of course they looked. Illya dressed her to gain their attention, and Solo knew when to turn on the full beam and dazzle). He asked with his eyes before his hands slipped lower, moving slowly and giving her plenty of chance to stop him if she’d changed her mind.

They’d talked about this. As soon as it became clear that the entrance to the upper floors was in the back room of a club, the cover was obvious. Even Illya knew what the back rooms of such establishments were commonly used for, and Solo couldn’t very well take anyone else back there and then run off to search for the blueprints they needed without being noticed.

And so, after Illya had left to get ready for his part of the reconnaissance, and Waverly had collected his briefing papers and let himself out, they’d talked. Discussed everything. Gaby was surprised at how careful Solo had been to tell her exactly what he would do; where he would put his hands and when, when they would kiss and where, and what she should do if she needed him to slow down or stop. They’d even decided on cover stories and back up plans they would use if she couldn’t go through with it – the martini, the drunkenness, she could feign incapacitation at any time and he would carry her out and put her in a cab and she could go back to the hotel and they would figure out another way to get him in to find the blueprints.  Of course, he’d laced the discussion with a fair amount of innuendo and made it very clear that tonight’s task would be no hardship for him, but she had come to expect that with Solo. Flirting was as much a defence for him as anger was for Illya.

It didn’t change the fact that she felt safe in his arms, even as they wound lower to rest on her ass and pull her close against him. She pressed up onto her toes as planned and he leaned down, capturing her lips in a kiss that was no less mind-blowing for being meticulously planned, choreographed and executed for the benefit of their captive audience. Gaby almost genuinely overbalanced from the combination of heat, alcohol and the heady adrenaline of his lips and the mission and the dozens of eyes daring sidelong glances at them on the dance floor. His arms tightened around her and he steadied her, drawing back minutely to give her space to breathe, to pull back and mumble her request for extraction if she chose. She did not. He smiled an intoxicating smile that was either for her or the crowd or, she suspected, both, and lifted one hand to grab hers, interlinking their fingers. His face changed into a look of pure sex as he leaned towards her, breathing in her ear.

“Shall we adjourn to the back room to continue this conversation?” he murmured, knowing that those closest to them could potentially read his lips. She nodded, keeping her eyes transfixed on him and not daring to acknowledge their audience, letting him lead her by the hand towards their destination and hoping against hope it was empty.

They were in luck. The back room was dank and deserted. As soon as the door had closed, Solo dropped her hand and turned to her.

“Are we good to go?” he asked quietly and she nodded, reaching down to check her knife was in place before following him to the locked, inconspicuous door. It was open within seconds, Solo’s skills with a lockpick put to good use. He drew his gun from where it had lain inconspicuously under his jacket and led, Gaby following with knife clutched in her fist. She hadn’t trained enough to trust herself with a gun in close quarters like this. Her aim was too unpredictable and they couldn’t risk a ricochet. It turned out that such precautions were unnecessary. They reached the rooms above the stairs to find them deserted, just as expected. The search took a while, especially as they were being careful to disturb as little as possible in the hope that the owner would not realise that they had been here.

Eventually, they found the blueprints. Napoleon called Gaby over to the pile of papers he had been investigating to check he had in fact found the blueprint for a new stealth fighter jet (because for all his skills, Solo was no mechanic) before proceeding to carefully extract the plans, photograph them and hand them to Gaby who painstakingly began her alterations. A figure here, a symbol there, change the speed to kilometres per second and done. The plane would never fly. The scientist who had designed it would be decried as a fraud and, probably, killed by his client for the deception and the new, lightweight, almost undetectable design would not be placed on the black market for the highest bidder. The only copy of the real plans in existence would be UNCLE’s.

Solo replaced the plans carefully where he had found them and then, checking his watch, indicated that they should make their way down the stairs and get out of there, mission accomplished.

They had just passed back into the back room when they heard noises outside the door leading in from the club. Quickly, Gaby grabbed Solo and slammed him against the wall, plastering herself against him and capturing his lips against hers. He cottoned on quickly, sliding his hand to grab her thigh and hitch it up against the wall behind him. Her dress rode up even further and she panicked, knowing that her transmitter was attached just under the hemline on that leg. She grabbed his hand and slapped it down onto her upper thigh, over the transmitter, covering it. He tightened his grip and carefully tugged her dress down with his other hand to keep the knife and its holster hidden while his other hand kept the transmitter hidden.

The door opened behind her. She didn’t dare look at who it might be, keeping her whole being transfixed on Solo’s body in front of hers, the hand that was not covering the transmitter roaming across her back, up to her neck and back down again, ostentatious in its movement to cover the stillness of his other hand on her thigh. She pressed closer to him, sliding her hand into his jacket to rest on his gun, ready and waiting in case this all went wrong. They were still there. She could tell. Still standing behind her, watching her. The unease shot through her at the thought. Had they seen through their ploy? Had their cover been blown? It surely must be soon; there was one reason that people sought out the backrooms of clubs, and they had (supposedly) been in here for a long time already.

She slid her free hand down gingerly, reaching for the front of Solo’s trousers. This was beyond what they had discussed. There was no easy-to-follow, carefully executed plan for this. She fumbled the button and his hand on her back slowed as his hand on her thigh tightened, pulling her closer and lifting her leg higher where it was braced against the wall behind him. Her dress now draped downwards, and the angle he had positioned them covered her hand and his zip from whoever it was that was standing in the doorway, staring at them. She breathed in relief, but could do nothing to thank him as she hooked her hand into his waistband and left it there, stationary, not touching him.

She could feel him, hard under her, but he had managed to make it possible that she wouldn’t have to go any further than this, so it shouldn’t be necessary to maintain their cover to whoever it was that was just standing in the doorway and watching them like a pervert.

“I’m going to try to shame him into leaving,” Solo whispered in her ear, breaking their kiss for a moment to lick and bite up her neck to her ear. ”Just follow my lead, alright?” He didn’t wait for a response – how would she be able to respond anyway, with the man’s eyes on her. She didn’t even know what he was planning.

And then Solo threw his head back and gasped, and she realised, feeling her face flushing violently for the first time. She pressed closer, bringing her head down to bury her face in his neck as he faked an orgasm above her head because it was suddenly too much to be actively involved in the scene. This was too personal and the eyes on her back were boring into her like lasers until finally, beautifully, she heard the door close and lifted her head. Solo was grinning at her but there was concern in his eyes. He dropped her thigh and she adjusted her dress, finally moving her hand away from his waistband and his gun.

”Is our cover still good?” she asked, needing to know exactly who had been watching them and for what purpose.

”Yeah. Just an admirer. Not one of Marco’s boys,” he answered and she seethed. In any other situation, a man who had the audacity to try to watch her like that would be eating through a straw for months. But the mission had come first. Their safety had come first. And the feeling of his eyes on her back would fade soon enough. It would have to.

”Come on, Chop Shop Girl. Let’s go home.” Solo smiled at her and offered her his arm. He hadn’t bothered to fix his hair or his tie, and she didn’t bother with hers, either. Let people think what they would think. Right now she just needed to get out of that room, where that man had… She took Solo’s arm and let him escort her out of the club and back to their hotel, not letting go of her once for the whole trip.

…

Illya wasn’t back yet when they arrived at the hotel. Gaby wasn’t sure whether she was glad that he wasn’t there to ask them how their part of the mission had gone, and look at her with knowledge of what they’d just done in his eyes – or whether she wished he was there so she could persuade him into letting her curl up in his arms and forget the man’s eyes on her back and the warm hot weight of Solo’s hand on her thigh.

She headed straight for the vodka. Solo let her go, following shortly after to pour himself a whiskey and collapse next to her on the sofa. They’re silent for a moment.

“How do you do it?” she asked him after a while, two or three vodkas down with a third or fourth in a glass in front of her.

”The sex?” he asked, looking for clarification she supposed.

She nodded. ”I can still feel his eyes on my back, and that was just him watching and we weren’t really…. How do you manage their hands?”

He was staring into his whiskey when she looked up, and suddenly she realised that she might be scratching at a wound, poking a sore, because who’s to say that he managed it at all. He did it, over and over and over again, because he was good at it. Because it worked, and they knew he could do it. Because it was safer than the Russian way, simpler and easier to cover up and hide. They did it for so many practical reasons.

She wondered if anyone had ever worried about the psychological ramifications. If anyone had ever helped him put together a coping strategy, had ever been careful to give him as many outs as he could need, to go slowly and make sure he was willing. Nobody would ever have given him the option to take the slight risk of faking to mitigate the feeling of uncleanliness afterwards. She had assumed that he didn’t feel like she did now afterwards, because he so blithely joked and flirted and offered to do missions this way. She’d forgotten the dead look in his eyes when he stumbled in with a stranger’s lipstick on his collar or strange hand marks on his hips.

”I drink,” he replied at last, almost when she had become too preoccupied with her own thoughts to remember that she had asked him a question. ”It gets easier after the first few times to block them out and become the person you pretend to be while it’s happening, to be the person who enjoys it. And I overwrite them wherever I can with experiences that I do get to choose.”

She’d rarely heard Solo this solemn. And never had he spoken about sex without a trace of flirt or innuendo in his voice. The pain of his situation pierced her heart. There was nothing she could do about it – it was the safest, most efficient way and it saved thousands of lives with the least risk to their own. She couldn’t deny that there would be missions in the future where he would have to offer up his body for the use of humanity and spend it for their safety. But she ached for him that he had to pay such a heavy price.

“They’ll ask you one day, Gaby,” he said presently. “One day when they need to seduce a heterosexual man for his secrets, or when I’m dead or injured or on another case, they’ll ask.”

“I know.” And she did. She’d known in her heart since they had asked her to use her body with him tonight, to don a short skirt and use seduction and subterfuge and sex instead of guns and cars and technology to save countless lives.

“You don’t have to say yes. There will always be another way,” he said into his glass. And there would be. There would be a way that might end in her death, or his, or Illya’s. A way that risked the public’s safety or put innocent bystanders at risk. It would be a risk she would have to weigh against the eyes she could still feel against her back, the heat of Solo’s hand on her thigh, the stickiness of the back room wall on her bare knee.

“I’ll decide when they ask me,” she replied. It would depend, she thought privately, on how well she had forgotten those eyes by the time they did ask.

“Cowboy…?” she asked after another interval of silence and drinking. He looked over at her, eyes bleary and the dead look back in evidence. “You mentioned something about overwriting them… would it be a terrible plan to do that now?”

He blinked at her, seemingly dumbfounded.

“Are you asking me to sleep with you?” He seemed stunned. She wondered how much her suggestion was the vodka talking, but it made sense to her.

“I want to. You kiss amazingly and I know you know what you’re doing with your hands. And I think I need to feel your hands on me without his eyes following them. Do you want to? I won’t be offended if you don’t.” She was gabbling, barely coherent with the mixture of vodka and adrenaline.

“I would consider it a privilege,” Solo answered, the lecherous grin slipping back over his face again as he replaced his whiskey on the table and reached for her.

“Wait,” she said quickly and reached around behind her, unclipping her dress and letting it fall to the floor before kicking it under the sofa. He looked at her, puzzled but appreciative.

”That was my costume. I’m doing this as me,” she clarified and understanding dawned on his face. He reached out and carefully removed his jacket, shirt and trousers, folding them neatly and placing them on the sofa before extending a hand to take hers.

”Then I’ll do this as me,” he replied, grasping her fingers and pulling her in for a quick but deep kiss before turning and leading her to the bedroom.

…

Illya must have come in at some point during the night. She found him sleeping on the sofa the next morning, Solo’s clothes moved to an armchair. His arm was scraped and there was blood on his black turtleneck, barely visible. She sighed and moved to examine the wound, trying not to wake him but he reached out and grabbed her hand as soon as she moved towards him, his eyes opening to slits.

“Good morning, Chop Shop Girl,” he muttered, accent thicker than usual having just woken up.

”Morning, Peril. Will you let me look at your arm?” she asked, wondering when it had become accepted that the boys brought their injuries to her. She was a mechanic. She liked to fix things. He grunted and began struggling to pull off his turtleneck. She rolled her eyes and reached down, helping to divest him of the garment.

”We got the blueprints and everything sorted,” she said, unnecessarily. They would have contacted him if anything went wrong, just as he would have radioed for them.

”That much is obvious, Chop Shop Girl,” he remarked, sarcasm heavy in his tone. The cut in his arm looked relatively superficial. It had bled a lot, but it wasn’t deep enough to cause lasting damage or to need stitches.

“This looks like it will be fine, Peril. Although it probably wasn’t helped by you sleeping on the sofa. Why didn’t you come to bed?" She and Illya shared a room with two beds, as had become their habit since that very first mission in Rome. Solo had company too often to share, and so frequently had his own room, although more often than not he ended up on their sofa or sleeping in one or the other of their beds when a mission went rougher than expected. Illya suddenly looked almost sheepish.

”I looked in the door. Saw you and Cowboy. I understand such things. I know you think I do not but I do. And so I sleep on sofa. Is comfortable.” He spoke to his hands, not looking at her, and suddenly she realised what he had seen. Her and Solo, naked in bed together, maybe even in the act itself, she hadn’t heard him come in, or curled up like… well like lovers. But that wasn’t what it had been (was it?).

”Oh, Peril, no. I mean… Cowboy and I didn’t mean… well it did happen. But we weren’t… it wasn’t… You could have come in.” And she meant it. Where the unknown man’s eyes on her back made her skin crawl, the knowledge that Illya’s had been there gave her nothing but a pleasant feeling of warmth. She trusted this man with everything that she was, and by everything she meant everything.

"I do not… where I am from this is private thing. Is not something that strangers are invited to watch." He is talking to his hands again. "I did not think that you would want me to be there. I apologise for not realising before I had seen you. I… sometimes I do not notice these things. It is weakness."

"No, Peril, it’s ok. Look at me. I trust you. Solo trusts you. It wasn’t some secret love thing. It was just…it was rough last night. Someone surprised us in the back room and we had to go further than we had planned. The man watched. We came home and I felt dirty. I needed to forget. And Solo helped me. That’s all. It was nothing… nothing that was meant to exclude you.” And she meant that from the depths of her soul. If Illya had been here, perhaps it would have been him that led her to her bed and wiped the memory of those eyes from her back with his hands and his tongue. She didn’t mind either way, because she trusted the man in front of her just as much as the man currently asleep naked in her bed.


	3. Chicago

This mission was rough on Gaby. Illya knew that. All his extensive training to read human behavioural signs was redundant when he knew her as well as he did; not to mention she was hardly trying to hide it. He could tell from the lines around her eyes, the bottles of vodka piled neatly around the trash of their rented apartment every morning, the odd hours she was keeping, wandering around until 4 or 5 in the morning and frequently crawling into bed with either Cowboy or Illya himself and finally falling asleep curled up in one or other of their arms. 

Cowboy had noticed too, of course. The two of them shared looks as she stumbled back into the apartment after yet another shift at the strip club, dropping her bag and her clothes as quickly as possible and heading straight for the shower. Neither of them said anything. What was there to say? They needed her in place for when their target took Solo in to view the new drugs that were being manufactured and sold on the premises. 

It was just unfortunate that the target’s father had passed away in Bolivia and he had flown out on short notice for the funeral, leaving no indication as to when he would be returning. The mission was stalled, after Gaby had taken her position but before Solo had made contact with the mark in his guise of an interested exporter. There had been no option other than for Gaby to maintain her cover in the strip club while they waited for the target to return. 

Illya understood the necessity of the decision for their mission. Maintaining an agent in the target location was vital for their neutralisation plan. But he could see that his little Chop Shop Girl was struggling with playing to the eyes of dozens of filthy, covetous men every night. 

He didn’t understand why dealing with the undeniable tension necessarily needed to involve so much physical contact – it was not his chosen method of relieving tension by any means – but he would not deny his little Chop Shop Girl anything she required, especially when she needed it so transparently. He was not averse to sleeping with his arms wrapped around her, nose buried in her hair, relishing the soft scent that was so characteristically Gaby even under the cheap perfume she had taken to wearing for this mission. He could still smell the motor oil, somewhere underneath everything else, as if it was almost engrained in her skin by this point. And when she lay in his arms she finally seemed to relax and return to something resembling herself. 

Her activities with Cowboy tended towards the less innocent end of the spectrum of physical contact but seemed to facilitate the same ultimate effect of bringing something of Gaby back. Often Illya had been woken by the sound of the two of them undertaking some form of sexual relations in the room next door. They were not quiet, or subtle. He tried not to listen, aware of the social taboo of the situation just as he was aware of it all of the many times he had sat on the end of a radio and listened to Solo in similar situations. He had never felt the nagging desire to match vision to sound before though. 

She had asked him once if he would care to be intimate with her (with them? He hadn’t been sure) in a sexual way. He had refused without question; Solo was much better qualified to help her in that way, much more experienced in such things. The KGB taught that each part of the mission should be undertaken by the most able agent on the team. He was bred for war, not love, and he knew it. 

He sometimes wondered if the disinclination that he had always felt for such things was a product of his KGB training, or rather something innate within him that would have been the case regardless of his career. Such thoughts were pointless, of course. What had caused him to lack the interest in the bodies of scantily clad models on that mission in Tahiti, or the writhing naked bodies in the many and various clubs and bars he had followed targets into over the years, was immaterial. He had never (before Gaby) felt the urge to touch a woman like that, and thus he knew that he would not be adequately skilled to wipe the memories of each hellish shift before the coyotes away from her mind like the way Solo’s fingers and tongue and… like Solo could. 

Of course he still accepted her into his arms whenever she came to him. He stroked her hair as she collapsed on the sofa with her head on his lap while he played chess, held her hand when she wound her fingers in his while they were watching Solo preparing dinner for them all. He let her to reach for him as she curled into Solo’s lap, dragging him down next to them and pressing his body up against Solo’s so she could hold onto them both, and he stroked her hair as Solo told her…told them… stories of stealing Belgian art and American automobiles in his dissolute past. Illya tried his best to disapprove, but he mostly ended up admiring the ingenuity of his partner. 

Solo’s fingers came to rest against his where his had stilled against Gaby’s head. She had fallen asleep against his chest, legs curled over Solo’s and hands clutching at both their shirts. She was frowning in her sleep, the tension from her last shift at the club not quite smoothed out of her yet. 

“I do not like this mission, Cowboy,” Illya whispered. “It is not…” he trailed off, trying not to think about how he wanted Solo to keep his fingers exactly where they were, hard and strong against the back of his hand where Gaby’s hair is infinitely soft and supple beneath it. 

“Me neither, Peril.” Solo’s face was more open than Illya had seen it before, crossed with a strange emotion that Illya didn’t understand. “I’d have gone in if I could. I know how hard these things are. She’s tough as nails, our Chop Shop Girl, but…” 

And something in Solo’s voice jarred as he spoke, and it finally clicked into place in Illya’s mind that perhaps Gaby was not the only one to struggle with the emotional aftermath of these missions. But they needed their agent on the inside, or the new drug would go into international circulation and thousands of people could potentially die from its side effects. Gaby knew that. It was why she’d agreed. 

“You are worse stripper than spy,” Illya responded, deadpan. 

“Why, thank you, Peril.” Solo winked at him. His infuriating persona was back in place, but slightly less convincing than before. Illya would have shoved him if it hadn’t been for the sleeping form of Gaby balancing between them. As it was, he settled for a glare. 

…

It wasn’t Solo’s fault that it went wrong – just a stupid accident, really. He was out shopping in one of the small produce stores he had discovered in the neighbourhood when an idiot teenager on a motorcycle lost control and crashed through the shop window. Solo vaulted the counter and got the shopkeeper out of the path or the careering biker, but in the process there was a sickening crack and his vision whited out for a moment as his ankle snapped under him. Then his focus became absorbed by the biker who bleeding out all over the shop floor. 

When the paramedics arrived he was braced on one knee, broken ankle trailing behind him, holding the pressure on the stupid kid’s spurting artery. He barely remembered the trundling ride to the hospital after they gave him morphine at the scene, but he did recall that Peril arrived before he should reasonably have been able to. Solo guessed vaguely that it may have had something to do with the tracker that got smashed during the crash, or perhaps he had actually been right at the very beginning when he came to the conclusion that Peril was somehow superhuman. He grinned lopsidedly and reached out to poke his partner. Peril glared at him.

“Tell me the truth, Peril,” he slurred. His hand wasn’t going where he wanted it to, and he frowned, trying to focus on moving it towards Peril, suddenly needing to feel his partner was really there.

“What is it, Cowboy?” Solo couldn’t tell if he was annoyed or amused. 

“Are you an experiment? Alien? A real life UFO?” he slurred again. ”You know, what with your… magical thing with the knowing where I am… and the running… and my car… and your… you know… perfect body.” Solo gestured at what he was talking about, vaguely trying to indicate all of Peril’s… everything. He vaguely noticed his hands were stained red. Huh. Maybe he was spending too much time with the Russian these days. Was communism contagious?

”This is the drugs, Cowboy. Go to sleep. I watch for enemies.” Peril sounded fond. Solo smiled sloppily and finally succeeded in making contact with his erstwhile, extra-terrestrial partner, grabbing his wrist with his communism-stained fingers. 

”Alright Peril. You take first watch. I’ll… I’ll just take a nap…” His eyes were closing against his will as the pain and the drugs dragged him under.

…

Illya was sitting by Solo’s bedside when Gaby came in, fresh from her shift at the club, make up still smeared over her face, and her coat wrapped tightly around herself, eyes still crawling over her skin. 

“I came as soon as I could. What happened? Will he be okay?” she whispered, pulling up a chair beside where Illya had stationed himself. He looked a state, her Russian. There were bloody fingermarks all over his chest and arms and he looked like he hadn’t slept in days. Well, the message about the accident had come in at the beginning of her shift eight hours ago, and she knew that Illya had been up all of the previous night staking out their target’s house in town. 

”Yes. Cowboy is tough. Made of thick materials. He has broken ankle and some cuts and bruises. The doctors have done surgery to set it. Recovery period will be six weeks before physiotherapy. He will have cast and crutches. We will make him use them.” Illya’s voice was icy cold, reporting as if to his handler, not his partner. She could see the tension in his shoulders and reached out, softly laying a hand on his arm in reassurance and reminder. 

”And if I refuse? Will you tie me down? I think I might enjoy that, Peril.” Solo’s voice was tired but it was unmistakeable. Where the endless flirting had once been disconcerting and annoying for the Russian, leading her to referee many disputes, arguments and sometimes even fights, Gaby noticed that this time it sent the tension rushing out of his spine.   
”Do not make me tie you up, Cowboy. You will do as the doctors say,” Illya responded. Characteristically not rising to Solo’s challenge, feigning ignorance of the double meaning of his words. Gaby smiled fondly, rolled her eyes and leant forward to check how Solo was doing for herself. He must have been hurting, because he didn’t make a lewd comment but instead fended off her prying fingers weakly and turned his gaze to Illya.

”We have a mission to complete. Vasquez will be back from Bolivia any day now. We can’t let those drugs get out into the international market. I’ll be alright. Just give me a couple of painkillers and I’ll be ready.” Solo was trying to sit up in the bed. Illya sighed and pushed him back down, easily holding him in place with one hand due to the mixture of pain and drugs that were addling the other man’s brain. 

“You will stay here and drink your food through straw and flirt with pretty nurses. We will complete mission.” 

”And how do you plan to do that?” Solo’s eyebrows arched as he asked it. 

”I will meet with Vasquez. I will tell him I am buyer. I will go with him to club. I will find the drugs. Gaby will set the explosives. We will leave club through staff door with the samples, set off the fire alarm and detonate the charges.” Illya laid out the plan – simple. Of course, he had been intending to set the charges himself, but the absence of Solo meant that they would have to give that duty to Gaby. She could set them earlier in the day. It was a risk – anyone might stumble across the charges during the evening, and they would have to use a different explosive, but it should work just as successfully as a two person mission, if with slightly more risk involved.   
“And you think you can pull that off, do you?”

”Chop Shop Girl is mechanic. Cars and bombs are not too different,” Illya responded.

”Oh, trust me, I know how good she is with her hands. No, what I worry about, Peril, is your ability to convince Vasquez that you would like nothing more than to take our Gaby out to one of the private rooms and ravish her. Don’t get me wrong, you do the whole angry-KGB-mobster character very well, but I think it’s fair to say that your acting range is fairly limited.” 

Illya’s fingers began to tap against his leg. He did not like to be reminded of his failings, of the things that made him a less effective agent. He would not punch Cowboy in his hospital bed. He would not. 

Gaby’s hand moved from his arm to rest lightly on the back of his fingers where they tapped. She didn’t move to stop him, merely placing her hand there so that he felt it with every tap, reminding him of her presence and their partnership with every movement he made. 

“Then we will just have to teach him,” she murmured to Solo, face calm but eyes steely. ”I have given too much to this mission to fail now because you are stupid enough to think you can infiltrate a facility and steal some samples in an ankle cast and on crutches.” 

”A fair point. Well, at least something good has come of this whole affair.” Solo was grinning. It never meant anything good when Solo was grinning.   
“And what’s that?” Gaby asked, equally suspicious of the look on their partner’s face. 

”Well, someone is finally going to explain to Peril about sex…” he grinned as Illya’s fingers balled into fists and Gaby hastily shuffled backwards away from him as the red haze rose. He took several deep breaths, remembering the techniques he had been taught first by his KGB handlers and then by the occupational psychologists at UNCLE.   
He didn’t punch his partner in the face. He supposed that was an achievement. 

…

”No, no, no. Peril. You look like you’re planning the most efficient way to incapacitate her, not fuck her. Jesus…” Solo was beginning to regret agreeing to teach Peril to play his role in their scheme. No doubt that he would accomplish the task the most successfully, but if he had realised that it would be this difficult he would have just made Gaby do it by herself. Gaby sighed where she was standing in the middle of their living room, halfway through her routine from the club, dropping the seductive slant to her hips and collapsing on the sofa next to where Solo was reclining, his ankle and its cast propped in front of him on the coffee table. Solo risked a lecherous glance at her. She was in her work outfit, all skin with the merest flashes of leather and satin barely covering her from their view. It was a mark of how long this mission had gone on that she no longer seemed so uncomfortable that she wanted to rip her own skin off every time she donned the costume. In fact, she looked comfortable enough that Solo didn’t even feel guilty for the enjoyment he was currently taking in her appearance. An enjoyment that, apparently, his partner did not share if the complete lack of interest on his face was anything to go by. He’d never convince Vasquez like that.

“Alright, look, Peril,” he turned to where Illya was sitting, tense as anything, in the armchair next to him. ”What turns you on? There has to be something. Nobody here’s judging… Mother Russia? The Communist Manifesto? The sweet, sweet sound of AK-47 fire in the distance? Whatever it is, it’s cool, we just need to work it into this little situation we’ve got ourselves into.” Solo was half-joking, but also carefully watching his partner’s reactions because, for once, he was in the uncomfortable situation of not knowing which buttons to push to reduce someone to their basest instincts. He’d thought for a long time that the Russian was head over heels for Gaby, but when she’d propositioned him he’d turned her down and she’d come to Solo’s bed confused and upset but ultimately accepting of their partner’s denial. Nothing in their relationship seemed to have changed after that, so Solo had put it down to some weird quirk between the two of them and assumed that he just couldn’t read the Russian. He was relishing the opportunity to finally ask and get an answer to the mystery that had been plaguing him for months.

”Is none of your business, Cowboy,” Illya grunted, tension radiating from every plane of his body. 

“Hate to break it to you, Peril, but if I’m going to teach you to look at our beautiful Chop Shop Girl like you want to do something other than eviscerate her, then I need to know what gets you going, if you get what I mean?” 

”No, Cowboy. I do not get what you mean.” Peril’s hand had started the characteristic tapping that meant they might not get their deposit on the apartment back. Fun as it usually was to antagonise his partner to this point, the mission was hanging in the balance and Solo was occasionally professional, so he took a moment to consider his next words carefully. He needn’t have bothered – Gaby, as usual, saved them both from an inevitable looking argument. 

She slid to her knees in front of Illya, carefully taking his tapping hands in hers and catching his gaze. ”You really don’t, do you? You don’t know what it feels like to look at someone and want them like that?” she asked, trying to catch his eye. He refused to look at her, glaring instead at the floor, and Solo recognised shame in his partner for the first time as his brain scrambled to catch up to what Gaby had said. He couldn’t imagine it. Not feeling that burning lustful spark of want, not ever… he understood most things sexual. There wasn’t much he hadn’t done or seen at some point after all, but never wanting it at all…

“And that’s okay, Illya.” Gaby had finally succeeded in persuading their partner to meet her eyes. ”You don’t have to. Let’s be honest, sex gets Solo into trouble much more often than it helps any of us out.” Her voice was warm and affectionate. She still hadn’t let go of Illya’s hands though, stilling the tapping that indicated the incoming rage. 

”I’ve seen a lot stranger, to be honest, Peril,” Solo added lightly. ”So don’t go thinking you’re anything special.” 

”The mission…” Illya started. 

”We’ll just have to teach you in a different way, that’s all. Can’t do method acting. How about copycat? You watch me and copy exactly what I do in response to exactly what I respond to. Learn your cues in her movements and then mimic my reactions,” Solo mused aloud. ”If you wouldn’t mind starting again, Gaby? And don’t let this go to your head. I’m overacting so Peril can pick it up. Not sure he’ll grasp the subtlety, but Vasquez isn’t going to need nuance. Broad strokes will do.” 

Solo sat back and let the full appreciation he felt for his beautiful partner, in her brilliantly revealing outfit, brim over his face, conscious of Peril’s intense gaze fixed on his body as he did so. A strange, unexpected thrill ran through his body in response to the gaze. 

Dammit, now was not the time to be developing an attraction to his definitely uninterested partner. 

…

Illya was confused. Everything about this had, mostly, made sense so far in his life. He was an instrument, moulded by his childhood, his mother and her friends, and then by the KGB to see sex as an unnecessary, messy and useless complication. He had never wanted it, and it had never happened. 

And then he had met Solo and Gaby and things had become… complicated. 

With Solo, sex had frequently become part of the mission and his inexperience with it had been an active detriment to his ability as an agent. Solo had uncovered multiple secrets that Illya had to admit he would never have been able to access using the methods that he had been taught. His inexperience had even hampered his ability to provide backup for Solo on several occasions. And that grated, but he didn’t even know where to start to ameliorate his lack of knowledge at this stage. He couldn’t exactly have asked them to explain what it was like to feel sexual attraction – that was tantamount to admitting failure. Utterly unacceptable. 

But that wasn’t the worst of it. At the beginning it had merely been problematic that he lacked the experience to perform at his most effective during the missions, but as his partners had wormed their way under their skin, as they had started spending more time together, trusting each other more, smothering each other’s sharp edges or simply wearing them away until they operated seamlessly together as a unit both in the field and out of it, something had started to happen. Sex had remained a large part of their collective life, an inevitability with Solo on the team, and his reaction when Solo’s conquests blared over the radio had not changed. And yet, his reactions to seemingly unrelated events had altered in ways he could not have anticipated. 

He had started to notice the way that Gaby’s overalls hugged her hips when she bent over the hood of a car, up to her elbows in grease, the way that her hair fell across his pillow when she crawled into his bed at the end of a hard mission. How her eyes sparkled when she was drinking vodka, and how she placed her feet so carefully when she danced.   
He started to notice the strength of Solo’s shoulders under his shirts, the flexibility and dexterity in his fast fingers, the knowing look in his eye when he was about to steal something. He started to notice the way their breath hitched when they retired to Gaby’s bed together. The way that the gasped each other’s names. The marks that Gaby sometimes left on Solo’s shoulders and back that he caught glimpses of when the other agent wandered out the morning after. 

And maybe, just maybe, he had started to understand a little of what everyone made such a fuss about. 

And now, as he watched Solo’s face and body language as he watched Gaby in her tacky but aesthetically pleasing ensemble, watching the helpless arousal, the way his body screamed the need for sex with every pore, as he tried to imitate his partner in every way, something like the red mist of anger was rising up within him, something he couldn’t name, could barely categorise. Maybe… 

“Exactly, Peril.” Solo was looking at him now, calculatingly, the sex suddenly absent from his features like he could turn it on and off like a tap. Maybe he could, it occurred to Illya. ”Exactly like that. Perfect. Do it exactly like that and Vasquez will have no problem believing that you’re mad for our Gaby.” Gaby grinned at him and flicked Solo’s ear. 

”He’s right. Exactly that. Now, shall we practice this over again? I’ll come and dance for you, Peril, and you keep thinking of how Solo looked when he did this.” Gaby offered. Illya nodded, slightly dumbfounded. Maybe this would be easier than he thought. 

…

Gaby had left the room to change out of her uncomfortable work clothes when all three of them were confident that Illya could pull of the deception enough to convince Vasquez to lend him one of the club’s private dance rooms. Solo hadn’t moved from where he was stationed on the couch with his foot propped, sipping the whiskey that Gaby had brought him out of pity with several scathing remarks thrown in. 

”You know you’re going to be on a two-way mic from this one, Peril?” Solo asked. IIllya could tell that his partner was carefully measuring his reactions, using all of his skill at reading body language. After their weirdly sexual afternoon, Illya wasn’t sure how he felt about the other agent’s eyes on him so closely. Part of him enjoyed the sensation, and the other was deeply disconcerted that that was the case. He wondered if Solo could tell. 

“Yes. Waverly made this clear at mission briefing, Cowboy. Some of us listen,” He responded tartly. Solo just took another sip of whiskey. 

_“I can talk you through it, if you would like. Step-by-step while you’re in the field. I can tell you exactly where to put your hands and your eyes to look the part.”_ Solo had switched to Russian. The KGB trained part of Illya’s mind immediately became suspicious, suggesting that the language change had been made to uproot him, to make it easier for the other agent to get a read on his reactions. The part of Illya that had been shaped and moulded by his experience with UNCLE, on the other hand, recognised the gesture for what it was – an attempt to make Illya more comfortable, and to hide their conversation from Gaby should she be listening in – to let him make the decision completely independently. She had been learning Russian, but was nowhere near proficient enough yet to understand their conversation.

_“Yes. I think I might enjoy your American stories while I work and you sit here with your feet up and drink whiskey, Cowboy,”_ he answered, grinning. They both knew that this conversation was more serious than they were letting it become. Neither mentioned the significance of Illya admitting that he would need help while on a mission. Solo nodded slowly. 

“Alright then, Peril.”  
…

_“Shake his hand. Not too firm – you’re not a KGB assassin, you’re a potential exporter – someone looking to get rich by exploiting him.”_

Illya resisted the urge to roll his eyes at his partner’s voice in his ear and shook hands with Vasquez, just hard enough to leave the other man in no doubt as to his strength. There was no harm in making clear that he could be a threat. How much of a threat, well, that was better left unsaid. 

“Mr. Andropov, it is wonderful to meet you at last.” Vasquez’ accent was strong and his smile was clearly meant to be ingratiating. His hands were sweaty and clammy to the touch, and he smelled strongly of cigar smoke and someone else’s lipstick. Illya despised the man. Not only was he preying on women who were being oppressed by the capitalist system until they were forced to sell their bodies for an unfair and exploitative price, but he was also exploiting the young and the stupid with his drug export business. America. At least Russian villains were motivated by higher ideals, like world domination. There was something tawdry and so typically American about making people miserable for greed.   
“Respond, Peril. He’s going to think you’re completely vacant at this rate.” Solo’s voice buzzed like an irritating insect in his ear. 

“Good to finally meet you too, Mr. Vasquez. I am sorry to hear of your father’s passing. I hope that the funeral arrangements were all made satisfactorily.”  
Illya took a perverse pleasure in the pain that shot across Vasquez’ face at the mention of his father and filed it away for future intelligence. A potential weakness.

“Now, before we get to business, I have an appointment scheduled at one of my clubs. I’ve got a rather fine new brunette. She’s been bringing me a lot of money. Would you care to join me? Hans will bring the car round, and of course he will bring the merchandise. You will be able to inspect its quality when we have sampled the delights of my club. And, of course, if you wish for a demonstration of its efficacy, one of my girls will be more than willing.” the invitation was standard and expected. Vasquez had a habit of enacting all of his deals behind the closed doors of his club, once he’d had his girls ply those he dealt with with enough alcohol and titillation that they were no longer completely on guard. It was a good subsidiary use for the establishments that primarily acted as drug warehouses and made a tidy profit in their own right on the side. Vasquez might be a no-good, greedy slimeball, but he had good business sense. Well, that was what Cowboy had said, causing Illya to launch into a tirade about the exploitation of the labour of the women involved that he was relatively sure in hindsight had been Solo’s objective all along. 

“Yes, Mr. Vasquez. That sounds like a pleasant opportunity.” Illya forced himself to grate out. 

_“Careful, Peril. That sounded like he’d suggested a trip to the dentist. This is meant to be fun, remember. Now get in the car and smile, dammit. Imagine you just made a really good chess move.”_

Illya did as Solo commanded. He tried not to think of Solo, stationed nearby in a nondescript car with his ankle cast carefully arranged so that he could still drive with his uninjured foot if they needed him, headphones in, listening to his every breath and watching his back. It was an oddly reassuring feeling. 

They made small talk in the car on the way to the club. Solo’s presence again proved invaluable. Apparently a momentous game of American football had taken place recently that Vasquez and his associate Burns greatly enjoyed discussing at length. He adopted a neutral expression and relayed all of the commentary that Solo whispered into his ear about what had happened and what his cover’s opinion was on it. It would have been easier to just plead his cover’s Russian background as an excuse for his ignorance about the sport, but Solo had emphasised the importance of seeming to fit into a certain stereotype to convince these men to agree to show him the drugs in preparation for their joint export venture. Apparently personality was as important as money in American business deals. 

They arrived at the club and Solo confirmed that Gaby was in place and had set the explosives ready for their trigger. Everything was in place. All they needed now was for Illya to slip away from Vasquez to steal the new designer drugs to take back to UNCLE for analysis, Gaby to pull the fire alarm and then set off the explosives as an exit strategy – a boiler room fire. If Gaby got the amount right there would be no danger to anyone in the club, only a lot of structural damage. The fire alarm was an insurance policy against the possibility of innocent people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time getting hurt. The explosion would also give them an excuse to call in the local police who, hopefully, would find the cache of regular drugs that was hidden in the closet next to the boiler room and take Vasquez and his associates into custody before they could make it out of the club and subsequently out of the country. 

The club was stuffier than he had expected. Hot and humid and, like its owner, smelled of cigars and lipstick and something else that Illya really didn’t want to think about. And then he saw Gaby. In the intimacy of the flat the three of them were sharing, in the safety of Solo’s arms, she had looked… pleasing. In this atmosphere, where Illya could practically feel the greedy looks the few customers who were in at this time of the day were giving her, the outfit looked flimsy and cheap. He supposed that was the point, to make her look as degraded as possible. The red mist was rising. His fingers started to twitch. 

_“Woah there, Peril. Gaby says you look like you want to kill her again. Calm down. If everything goes well, we can get her out of here in a few hours and she will never have to do this again.”_

The conviction in Solo’s voice would have startled Illya a few months ago. Now he thought that maybe he understood.

She caught his eye then, his little Chop Shop Girl, and flashed him a grin like there was nothing wrong in this situation, like this was any other mission. The red mist began to recede and he tried to remember how he had looked at her when they had practised in their flat together. He hadn’t calculated for the effect of the setting on his acting abilities. Usually his skill level was not dependent on context. There was a lot about this side of the business that he didn’t know well. 

”Ah, I see you have noticed my new beauty, Mr. Andropov. Perhaps you would care to have a closer look?” Vasquez’s tone was unctuous. 

_“Say yes, Peril. Repeat after me: Yes, I think I would. There seems to be something… intriguing… about this one. I would enjoy taking a closer look at her assets, if you would permit it.”_ Solo’s tone was incredibly suggestive. Illya tried to mimic it exactly. He must have got it close enough, because Vasquez smiled at him and led him over to the table in front of which Gaby was dancing before disappearing to collect drinks. 

_“Well done, Peril.”_

Vasquez brought cheap vodka, clearly assuming that because of his cover’s Russian background this would be appreciated. Illya tried not to grit his teeth as he drank it, knowing it was necessary but hating the way it numbed the edge of his senses. They both watched Gaby as she moved from routine to routine. Solo’s voice was constant in Illya’s ear, calmly reminding him that she had agreed to the mission, that Vasquez was going to be arrested, that this mission was removing potentially fatal new drugs from international circulation. Finally, after he’d had more vodka than he would have liked but less than Vasquez thinks he has, Solo made the call that it is time. 

_“Alright Peril. This is about the time to start looking like you need that private room. Start shifting in your chair a little, like you’re uncomfortable.”_

KGB do not shift. Illya did it anyway.

_“Right, now, keep your eyes on Gaby, but let them keep straying to her breasts and hips. Increase your breathing rate. Imagine what I looked like when she was right in front of me when we practised.”_

And suddenly, with those words, it was easy. It was almost as if a lock clicked in Illya and the image of Solo’s lust broke something within him and he wanted. He looked at Gaby and it was easy to show them just how much he wanted to touch her, wanted to feel her body next to his. He noted the encouraging smile she sent his way, quickly and secretly while Vasquez was distracted by her legs. 

It was Burns who suggested that Illya take Sugar (Gaby’s cover name) to one of their private rooms. He gave Gaby clear instructions and another bottle of vodka. She swayed provocatively against him as they made their way down the stairs and along the corridor, entering the last room but one, right next to the boiler room. Illya let out a breath when they were finally alone. There were no cameras in these rooms. 

“Good work, Peril.” Gaby smiled behind him, looking tired. He reached out, not really knowing why, and smoothed her hair behind her ear, cupping her face with his hand.   
“You are too good for mission like this, Chop Shop Girl.” he sighed and met her eyes which were open and startled. It didn't really make sense that he kissed her. Maybe it was the vodka, maybe the heady atmosphere of the club and the arousal that he had finally managed to dredge up from somewhere, maybe it was because he knew that was what Solo would do if they were left alone for a moment on a mission where Gaby was playing bait for a hundred ravenous men’s eyes.

_“Hate to break the moment, truly believe me I do, but we do have a mission to complete. You can finish this conversation when you get home.”_

The innuendo in Solo’s voice was clear as Illya jerked back, ashamed of his unprofessionalism. Gaby reached out and squeezed his hand, silently promising him a later to talk about this. 

“Shall we?” she asked, indicating the door. He checked his pistol and noded. 

And then they went. 

…

Hours afterwards, Gaby crawled into his bed instead of Solo’s, holding him close. The kiss hadn’t been mentioned, not by any of the three of them. There was a silent agreement that it was too soon. He knew his partners would corner him about it sometime though. 

He worried for a moment that she would expect sex from him, like she always did with Solo when they had done a mission like this together and she could still feel the eyes of whoever it was that had watched her seduce him, or watched him seduce her. But she didn’t. Instead, she curled into his side, resting her head on his shoulder and throwing an arm and a leg over him, talking quietly of inconsequential things. 

It was only when Solo slid into the other side of the bed, nonchalant and casual despite the cast still hampering the movement of his ankle, that Illya realised that this was for his benefit as much as for theirs. 

“Nicely done, Peril,” Solo muttered over his head. “I hear you were very convincing.”

“Is not difficult. I am a _good_ spy,” Illya responded half-heartedly, trying to pretend that the praise didn’t matter, that he didn’t enjoy having Solo’s warm strength at his back even as Gaby’s softness plastered over him, that they weren’t slowly bringing him back after the afternoon’s mission had sent his mind reeling.

“Did I ever tell you about the time I stole an emerald elephant from the Contessa D’Aleglio?” Solo asks after a moment. 

He fell asleep nestled between the two of them, Solo’s voice washing over him, content as he had not been in a long time, perhaps ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on Illya's sexuality:   
> I imagine Illya as demisexual (someone who feels sexual attraction only when they feel an intense emotional connection with a person). However, as far as I'm aware this concept didn't really exist as a sexual orientation at the time when this is written and so none of the characters are aware that it is a thing beyond Illya's descriptions of his own experience. 
> 
> The key point is that Illya has not been 'cured' of asexuality by finding the right partner but has been demisexual all along.


	4. Buenos Aires

Peril had disappeared just over 48 hours earlier. He’d been on a routine surveillance job, lurking around outside the factory that they were staking out when his tracker had suddenly disappeared off the radar in the hotel room where Gaby had been watching. She’d been out of the room and in a stolen car within seconds and at the factory within minutes, but there had been no trace. Nothing. She had searched everywhere for anything and come up blank. Solo, who in her haste she’d forgotten to fetch, had also looked when he arrived not much later, but he’d come up with nothing either. Blank.

Fear was her existence for the next two days. There was little she could practically do. Solo had called his contacts and disappeared into the seedy underworld, armed with three languages, an obscene amount of bribe money and buckets of charm. Gaby had remained by the tracker and the phone and alternated between cleaning her gun and trying to figure out how to remotely reactivate Illya’s tracker until Solo had called her.

He’d found him. A contact of a contact had heard something from a disreputable source, but it was enough. Enough to construct a plausible story from, to figure out who had probably taken him, enough to gain a hint of why. Gaby had dropped the phone when Solo told her. She could hear the tension in his voice as he outlined his plan and told her where to meet him on their motorbike. She could feel it in his limbs when he climbed up behind her and told her who they were following.

They followed their mark – a middle aged, local woman, quite unremarkable to look at – back to the warehouse and promptly stormed it, all guns blazing and no subtlety. It was Illya’s style more than theirs, but they didn’t have time for anything more complicated. Gaby tried not to look at the guards lying dead with her bullets in them on the way in. Her shots weren’t as neat as Solo’s. It had taken them longer to die.

The proprietor escaped. She made it to a fire exit while they were busy with the others in the building. They heard the other vehicle bike roaring off and exchanged a glance to confirm their agreement. They were an agent down, had no idea what condition he was in and no idea what had happened to him. Now was not the time for revenge. When they had their partner back, they would hunt her down and make her regret her actions, but for now they had higher priorities.

He was semi-conscious in a back room of the warehouse when they found him. His hands were cuffed to a metal radiator, all of his fingers jutting at odd, painful looking angles, clearly broken, mottled purple with bruising already. He was collapsed forwards with his arms twisted behind him, needle tracks obvious in his right arm. Gaby leant over him, feeling the heat pouring off him in waves and trying not to think about the rumours they had heard about the drugs that were being developed here as she reached down to check his pulse. It was racing, despite his lack of response. Solo was already behind him, carefully, painstakingly picking the locks on the too-tight handcuffs. Illya moaned as they finally came loose and he fell forwards into Gaby’s shoulder, sweat soaking through her shirt almost immediately as she rocked with the impact of his full weight landing on her.

“Sorry,” Solo murmured from behind his partner, moving to work on the other cuff, quickly freeing the lock. He’d grabbed Illya’s arms when he’d unlocked the cuffs, and slowly and gently moved them back around to a position that looked like an approximation of comfortable while Gaby rearranged herself to support her partner more fully. His eyes had fluttered open at the contact with Gaby but his gaze was feverish and glazed.

“We need to get you out of here, Peril. Can you stand?” she asked. His gaze flickered around the room before it managed to focus somewhere near her throat.

“Drugs.” He managed to slur out in Russian. Gaby took a second to congratulate herself on her progress with the language before sharing a glance with Solo over her partner’s head. They had both been dreading this. The sect which had been holding their partner had been engaged by the terrorist organisation they had originally been shadowing to experiment with unusual forms of biological weaponry. Chemical aphrodisiacs, mostly – incredibly potent, sometimes even deadly ones. With close links to many ex-Nazis, the group believed strongly in eugenic ideals and the need to create a pure master race. It didn’t take a genius to understand what their plans for Illya had been. However, judging by the hardness pressing into Gaby’s side, they hadn’t managed to follow through with the entire procedure.

Gaby was incredibly grateful for that fact, but it did leave them in a rather awkward position. According to the research – if vague hearsay could be considered research –they had uncovered, the drugs could be fatal if not allowed to follow their course, and the kidnappers had left Illya in no state to take care of anything himself. Still, here was not the time nor the place for that debate. For now, he was compromised but stable enough, and they needed to get away before the mysterious scientist returned with reinforcements from her parent cell.

“Can you carry him? I’ll bring a car around – I saw some parked by the back entrance. I can get us back to the safe house in ten minutes,” Gaby offered. Solo met her eyes, grim and determined, shifting Illya’s weight back into his arms as Gaby scrambled out from under her partner and grabbed her gun, readying herself and rushing out to steal them a getaway vehicle.

…

“Alright, Peril” Solo breathed, left alone together in the quiet warehouse. He dragged Illya up and shifted his partner’s weight against him, trying not to focus too much on the other man’s drugged condition – compartmentalisation was key, they would deal with the problem when they got out of immediate danger. “Let’s get you out of here. Any help from you here would be great…” he muttered.

“Terrible spy… can’t even…” Illya cursed under his breath and Solo breathed a sigh of relief as his partner managed to get his feet under him. He was still leaning the majority of his weight on Solo, but at least he was lucid enough to try to walk on his own.

“Okay, Peril, just hang on. Our Chop Shop Girl’s gone to get a car.” He would have gestured, but Illya’s head had collapsed against his neck, lips pressing into his pulse point. He tried to ignore the shiver that ran down his spine at the feel of his partner’s breath on his neck, and his body pressed against him.

Not the time or the place.

“Alright, Peril. Let’s get going” he answered instead, securing his arm strongly across his partner’s back and taking most of his weight. They made their awkward way across the room, through the labyrinth of the corridors of the warehouse, out into the darkness and into the back seat of the car that Gaby had started. Solo manoeuvred Illya in first and then climbed in barely in time before the wheels screeched and Gaby sped away. It was a mark of how worried she was that she didn’t comment on the way that Solo arranged Illya so carefully over him, holding his partner tightly as if it would stop the progress of the drugs in his system. They both knew it was a futile hope.

…

They got to the safe house in ten minutes, just as Gaby had promised. Illya regained some level of lucidity on the ride – enough to answer the standard questions that they had all been trained to ask agents on recovery. He didn’t seem to have noticed the particular effect of the drugs yet, for which Gaby was incredibly grateful.  However, it was disconcerting to see him pressed into Solo’s side with no apparent shame, or even knowledge of what he was doing, and she could see the effect that was having on the other agent. It was so unlike her Illya and she hated it.

It took the three of them longer than she had imagined it would to get Illya inside, probably due to his almost magnetic attraction to Napoleon’s neck. She wondered idly if the fascination had been purely fabricated by the drugs, or if their partner’s neck was something which had always interested the Russian. It wasn’t something she’d ever thought to question before. Illya just wasn’t interested in them that way. Other than a few rare moments which had led her to question her assertions – the occasional look, a touch here or there – there had never been anything to convince her that this was something he would have wanted without the drugs in his system.

Suddenly the curiosity in her gut was quenched with a tide of pure fury at the woman responsible for this desecration – a woman who she had a sudden vicious desire to introduce to a high velocity bullet between the eyes. She wrestled down the anger and tried to focus. There was nothing to be done about the perpetrator at the moment. She had escaped, and they would find her, but until then she had a partner to take care of.

“Peril,” she said quietly once they’d got him inside and onto the mattress on the floor – the only furniture in their cramped, overheated and damp one room safe house. He remained plastered to Solo, clinging awkwardly with his wrists, fingers still bent at horrific angles that looked incredibly painful. Gaby looked to Solo for aid.

“Peril. Focus.” he carefully moved back, extricating himself from his partner’s arms until Illya raised his head from where it had rested on Solo’s shoulder, face buried in his neck. He barely managed to swing his eyes around to Gaby who sighed in relief seeing some level of lucidity there.

“You’ve been drugged,.” she explained quickly. They were going to have to do this quickly or they were moving into risk of brain damage. “The woman who took you injected you with an experimental aphrodisiac. I’m sure you can feel it’s effects if you take a second to think about it. The drug results in raised heart rate and sky rocketing body temperatures. If you don’t orgasm within a few hours of the injection, you risk brain damage or a heart attack. We don’t know exactly when you were injected, so we need to do this fast. I’m sorry. I really am. I know how you feel about this sort of thing, and I wish there was another way to do this, but it needs to be now and it needs to be one of us. We can’t wait for your fingers to be set and now is not the time to be experimenting with toes.” She tried to keep her voice as impartial as possible, needing to communicate the facts with him as efficiently as she could without letting her utter fury distract her.

“So the choice is, Peril, would you rather be debauched by me or our lovely Miss Gaby?” Solo added, flirt firmly back in his voice, doing his best to lighten the situation. “I am sure that I speak for both of us when I say that we are ready and willing to provide such a service to the best of our collective abilities, so the choice is up to you.”  

It was as much choice as they could give him in the matter. It had to happen, and soon, but at least they could give him the choice of how.

“I… I do not think that… Cowboy, I do not think I will be able to restrain myself.” Illya’s eyes were trained on Gaby in a way she had rarely seen from him before, a look she barely recognised as the one that she had seen on the faces of hundreds of men over the years because she had never thought to expect it from him.

“Alright, Peril. You and me it is.” Solo’s charm was firmly up now, the innuendo laid thickly over his voice. Gaby had heard it so many times before, with so many of their targets, and it made her feel sick that it was happening in this context. Illya was still staring at her like he wanted nothing more than for her to touch him.

“Peril, do you want me?” she asked bluntly, with no hint of flirt, no charm.

“Oh yes, my Chop Shop Girl. I want to do lots of things to you.” he answered, almost successfully parodying what he had obviously heard Solo say so many times in this situation. But this time, she realised, Illya’s words had an underlying genuine heat which had almost always been missing coming out of Solo’s mouth.

She considered the situation. Solo would do the job admirably. He was highly skilled. He knew how to compartmentalise, how to separate himself from what he had to do. block this sort of thing from hurting too badly. He cared about their partner. He was probably strong enough to do this with minimal damage to everyone involved. And she knew that Illya was choosing him based on that knowledge, based on his rational conclusion, somewhere underneath the haze of the drugs, that sex with Solo would cause the least long term physical and mental damage to their little group. He was willingly submitting based on his calculation of the greater good, and she loved him for it.

“Would this be easier if Solo handled restraining you while I handled the sex?” she offered slowly. If he truly wanted Solo and not her, she could deal with that. She pushed away the nonsensical part of her brain that was hurt, remembering that he had always loved her before now with no evidence of sexual attraction, and would continue to do so even if he showed sexual interest in Solo. But if this was some sort of misguided notion to save her, to _protect_ her, then she was not about the let that happen at the risk of one of her two boys getting hurt. Solo couldn’t restrain and take care of Illya at the same time, and she wasn’t under any illusion about being able to stand a chance against the Russian if it came down to it. Teamwork seemed to her to be the most sensible strategy.

Solo was checking in with her without words. Trying to see if she was sure, if she had thought it through, if she understood what she was offering. Of course he was. Solo was more careful about this kind of thing than anyone else had ever thought to be, but she was fine, and she knew that this option gave the three of them the best chance of getting out of this physically unscathed. They could deal with the mental ramifications later.

“I think… I think… yes. I think that’s a good idea.” Peril gritted out through clenched teeth, forcing himself to keep his eyes steady on hers, although he was leaning heavily into Solo. She met his eyes, finding them lucid enough for her to accept his agreement.

“Okay, Peril. Just lie back and think of the Motherland, then. We’ll get this over with as soon as possible.” Solo grinned, wrapping his arms carefully around Illya’s torso to pull him more fully onto the bed, pulling him back until he was propped against Solo’s thighs. Gaby tried not to notice how Illya whined at the contact.

“Gaby, buttons.” He instructed, and she started forwards. Most of the buttons on his shirt had been ripped off, and it would cause too much pain to manipulate it over his injured shoulders and hands, so she just undid the remaining buttons and let it fall open before helping Solo to manoeuvre Illya’s arms to a semi-comfortable looking position by his sides. Solo then shifted forward, letting Illya’s head slide to the mattress between his knees and throwing most of his weight onto Illya’s arms. Illya whined again and tossed his head from side to side, connecting with Solo’s thighs until Solo clamped them tightly.

“Alright Gaby, we’ll improvise if we need to do more, but hopefully this will stop him hurting himself. It’s your circus, darling.” Solo’s eyes made her feel like she could do this, even as she confronted the stark reality of Illya’s beaten body before her straining for any kind of contact. She took a deep breath and moved to straddle Illya’s thighs, head level with Solo.

“Do you need me to…” Solo began to ask. She interrupted him with a kiss, hard and purposeful. He responded in kind. He couldn’t move, so she moved for him, grabbing his hair and sliding towards him, feeling the warmth of Illya between her legs underneath her, bucking into her touch. Solo knew exactly how to kiss her. He’d done it a thousand times before. He knew the shortcuts to drive her crazy in a matter of minutes and he was using every one of them with no regard for subtlety whatsoever. For a moment, Illya lay forgotten between them as she allowed herself to get lost in just how talented Solo was in this area.

And then he pulled away and she turned back to the task at hand. Illya’s trousers and underwear were easy to remove, pulled off and thrown on the floor almost without thought, and then she turned to the task at hand.

She tried not to think about this being Illya – beautiful, loving and totally uninterested Illya – as she settled into place, keeping her eyes on Solo as he held her gaze, offering her alternative memories, alternative fantasies. How many times had she imagined Illya inside her, warm beneath her while Solo’s hands ran over their skin? And yet now, now he was there with them and she couldn’t let herself focus on the feel of him between her legs because she knew this wasn’t what he wanted.

If this had been his choice… if this had been what he wanted… In a second. In a heartbeat…

She kissed Solo again, distracting herself from the situation with the overflow of sensation that came from Illya beneath her and Solo’s lips on hers.

It didn’t take long, certainly not long enough for Gaby to truly forget their situation. Whether it was the drug, or the situation, or both, soon Illya was thrusting up into Gaby and straining against Solo’s hold on his torso. Gaby risked a look at him at that moment, braving the guilt of stealing this knowledge without his consent, but knowing that she would likely never see this again. Exquisite, as she had known he would be, as he always was.

Moments later he fell back onto the mattress, exhausted, eyes rolling closed. Gaby leant forward, concerned, reaching out to check his pulse with a sweat soaked hand. Whose sweat, she couldn’t quite remember at this point. He tilted his head into her hand as it neared his throat.

“Thank you, my Chop Shop Girl” he murmured into her palm, opening his eyes, clear and lucid and completely focused on Gaby. She leaned forward, ever so slowly, giving him all the opportunity in the world to stop her. He didn’t. She smiled softly and kissed him. His lips tasted of salt and blood, an unwelcome reminder of everything he had been through, but he kissed her back, eager and inexperienced, so different from Solo who knew every motion like a well-rehearsed dance, and yet just as astounding.

She could sense Solo shifting away from them and then Illya’s arms came up to wrap around her, pulling her in close to him as he kissed her. It was only when she felt him wince below her that she remembered the state of his hands and carefully pulled back. He tried to follow her and she smiled down at him.

“Later, Peril. Whatever you want, but later. Right now, we need to have a look at your hands. Do you understand?’

The look that crossed Illya’s face was unreadable, but he nodded and relinquished his grasp on Gaby, allowing her to move away from him.

“I should…” she looked vaguely awkwardly towards Solo who had found a first aid kit from somewhere and was perched on the edge of the mattress with it, fully clothed and looking incredibly composed considering what they had just done. He raised an eyebrow at them.

“Trust me, I’ve got this. I have more than enough experience of patching you up, don’t I Peril?” He grinned at his partner, returning to their usual dynamic, typically adamant in his refusal to acknowledge that the situation could be strange or awkward in any way.

“Only because you are terrible backup.” Illya responded and Gaby rolled her eyes and left them to it.  

 


	5. The Aegean Sea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Massive apologies for the delay in updates. Real life and serious levels of writers block got in the way. Hopefully it will be updated a bit more frequently from now until the end.

The mission was relatively simple. They had good intelligence that stolen plans for a revolutionary new nuclear submarine were being traded between the Italian master thief and one of a number of potential buyers from different nations across the world, including Russia and America. Apparently the lack of cohesive proof as to who would end up succeeding in the auction process was adequate to place it squarely under U.N.C.L.E’s remit and led their team to be sent undercover aboard the luxury cruise liner. Gaby had found a job reasonably easily as a waitress in one of the many restaurants aboard, while Solo had used one of his old covers as a super rich American playboy and taken Illya with him in the cover of a body guard.

Checking in had gone as planned. Gaby had established technical headquarters in the small, windowless cabin below decks provided for her ‘rent-free’ by her employers to make up for the pitiful wages and questionably legal hours. They were banking on its remote location and her peripheral role in the operation to keep prying eyes from discovering their real allegiances. Solo had quickly slipped back into being Matthew Forrester, the charismatic younger son of an elusive American billionaire businessman, and was easily mingling with the potential buyers over a champagne reception in the main dining room while Illya surveyed the room sullenly from a corner.

Illya was under no illusion that his partner was eminently more suited to the role he was playing than he himself could ever be. The people in this room were not only dangerous, but utterly repulsive. If reports were to be believed, Solo was currently semi-flirting (possibly...probably… there was certainly more eye contact and suggestive leaning than Illya would have engaged in, but he was painfully aware of how far behind Solo he was in his ability to read people when sexuality was concerned) with a man who was deemed by most international agencies responsible for the murder of over a hundred children in a remote village in his home country.

Suppressing a shudder, Illya and returned to his careful survey of the crowd. Most of the faces here were easily recognisable from U.N.C.L.E’s watch lists. Their thief had picked his bidders well—or exceptionally poorly. The chances that the unsuccessful parties on this boat would accept that they had been outbid was very low. This had all the makings of an extremely dangerous situation.

A familiar laugh startled Illya from his assessment of the crowd, and made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. The red mist—which he’d been working so hard on controlling—rose until it was clogging his throat and muddling his actions. Fuck. This was not the time or the place.

He clenched his fists and focused on his breathing as the doctors had taught him. Slowly counting his breaths, he managed to force back the red mist until he could think again, without the need for violence controlling him.

The voice was moving past him now, they hadn’t seen him. And yet, just the tenor of that laugh had sent him spiralling back fifteen years.

He needed to brief his partners. Now.

“Cowboy, we have a situation. Meet me in the store room opposite the men’s bathroom. Now!” he hissed into his earpiece in German. He was reasonably sure that the bodyguard stationed next to him had belonged to one of the Mexican drug cartels and would therefore be unlikely to understand. He didn’t dare use Russian, in case… He clenched his fists again and focused on his objective. He needed to get out of here, and he needed to do it without being seen.

* * *

“What’s going on?” Solo sauntered into the room a few minutes later, presumably having had to make his excuses to whatever pathetic excuse for a human being had been dripping on his every word a few moments earlier.

“Gaby, are you listening?” Illya said in his earpiece. Solo’s face seemed to freeze at Illya’s tense tone and his eyes darted down to the Russian spy’s clenched fists.

_“Yeah, loud and clear. I’m not due in the kitchen for another three hours. What’s the situation?”_

“One of the guests. He is… he is an acquaintance. From Russia.” Illya spat through gritted teeth.

“Shit, you mean we’ve got KGB on this? Dammit, they told Waverley that they’d leave this to us.” Solo cursed. “Alright, well, we’ll need to update Waverley, and then make contact with this agent and see if we can…”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?” Solo rounded on his partner, confused.

“I mean he is not KGB. He knows me from… before that. He was… a friend of my mother’s.” Illya was struggling to form the words, and switched back to his native tongue. _“A client when she was a whore,”_ he finished in Russian, unable to think through the words clearly enough to translate them. Solo’s face was instantly unreadable, the consummate professional at hiding his reactions, but he heard a sharp intake of breath through his earpiece that reminded him that Gaby hadn’t known about his less than salubrious origins.

“Alright. So how do you want us to play this?” Solo asked. Illya didn’t have time to properly react to the fact that Solo was deferring to him, letting him call the shots on this one, trusting him.

“I…”

He was interrupted by the door to the storage room opening, slowly, to reveal the man that he’d thought he’d avoided.

General Pavel Savinkov had been a promising young government official when they’d last met. It seemed that the last fifteen years had treated him well, although his presence on this cruise ship suggested either the Russian government were playing fast and loose with U.N.C.L.E or he was rogue and was here against the orders of his own government. Illya might be biased, but he tended to favour the second option.

“Why, gentlemen, I hope I am not interrupting anything.” Savinkov smiled, shark-like, baring his teeth, as he and his retinue of two armed thugs sidled into the small room. “I saw this dear boy crossing the hall out there, and I just had to come and say hello. It’s been what… fifteen years? How is your mother these days, Illya?”

Taking a breath, Illya crushed the red mist deep within him. There were two armed guards, and Savinkov was no frail old man, no matter how much he played the role of a jocular uncle. All three were eminently dangerous, and between the door and himself and his partner, not to mention the myriad of unsavoury characters who might acquire plans for a nuclear submarine if the mission failed. No. This could not be handled the Russian way. It was too risky. His time with Solo had taught him that much.

Of course, it had also taught him that there were other ways to accomplish a mission. Ways that no KGB agent would even consider.

“I do not know, General Savinkov. I have not spoken to her since she was denounced as a traitor to the Motherland.” He kept his eyes level on the older man, willing Solo to keep quiet and follow his lead for once.

“Such a pity. She had such a talented mouth.” Savinkov was enjoying this, Illya could tell. He could see that glee in his eyes as he tried to provoke, tried to needle. “For singing, you understand. She was a fantastic singer, your mother.”

There wasn’t a single person in the room who was under any illusion as to his real meaning.

“A traitor is a traitor, sir. No matter how talented.” Illya responded. Careful to slip the ‘sir’ in as if by habit. Savinkov liked to be in control. That was easy enough to deduce. And to get out of this, Illya would have to convince him that he was not a threat, but an ultimately superficial toy, just amusing enough to avoid extermination. Just as his mother had been, all those years ago.

“But where are my manners!” Savinkov turned to Solo with an exaggerated smile. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend, Illya?”

Solo’s face was carefully blank and his body coiled tense, ready for action, willing to back Illya in whatever course of action he decided was best. A wave of some emotion that he couldn’t easily identify shot through Illya at that, solidifying his resolve. He would not risk their lives unnecessarily. Not when he knew exactly what Solo would have done in this situation without even a second thought.

“Mr Forrester is a… client.” Illya swallowed around the word as Solo barely managed to conceal the shock on his face. Savinkov’s oily features contorted as he began to laugh.

“So the apple, as the English say, does not fall far away from the apple tree. It is good to meet you, Mr. Forrester. I have heard some interesting thing about your father’s business dealings.” He held his hand out, and Solo shook it.

“All lies, I can assure you, Mr…” Solo answered, firmly back into character as an arrogant and charming American brat, shaking the General’s hand with just enough violence to put him on his guard.

“Savinkov. General Savinkov. I must also congratulate you on your choice of companions. If he is anything like his mother, he must be worth your investment indeed.” Savinkov was looking at Illya with undisguised interest written plainly across his face. Even Illya couldn’t miss it. He swallowed minutely, struggling to keep his cover as the red mist rose higher in response to being looked at like a piece of meat while the general spoke of his mother in much the same tone. Thankfully, Solo had picked up on the undercurrent and moved closer to Illya, every inch the jealous, entitled jerk. He didn’t touch, though. He was doing everything he could to screen Illya from sight.

“I pay him well for exclusivity and confidentiality. I hope you are aware of the delicacy of the situation, General Savinkov.” Solo’s lines were well practiced, as if he’d known this was the plan the whole time. Illya was glad to let him take over the conversation for a moment, giving him the opportunity to collect his thoughts and calm the red mist with cold rationality.

“So you would not be interested in allowing me to purchase some of his time from you? You would, of course, be well compensated.” The danger in the General’s tone was growing with every word. Sick dread settled in Illya’s stomach. Solo would never…

“I value exclusivity more than I need money, General. I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can accommodate you.”

“Very well. How about a demonstration of his talents?”

“I’m afraid—” The two thugs suddenly moved, taking up more space, guns in hands where they had previously been secreted away in holsters. Danger radiated through the room and Illya clenched his fists again, readying himself to spring into action.

At this range, their odds of survival were non-existent.

“You see, Mr. Forrester, I must insist. I have heard rumours, you see. Natalia once told me that her son was KGB. Their youngest ever. Very proud she was, that old whore. Off her face, as well, you understand. So you see, I do have to confirm your story. I will not impinge on another man’s whore, but I will need a demonstration. Or, of course, I could put a bullet in his skull, and yours. I’d rather not deal with the clean up, but I can’t have KGB involved in my business dealings, Mr. Forrester. I’m sure you understand.”

“Let me get this straight. You want to get your rocks off watching my whore go down on me because you think he might be KGB, and if we don’t, you’ll shoot us?”

“Yes, Mr. Forrester. That is my proposal.”

“Well, holy fuck you got some weird kink going on there.” The guns raised and Solo took a step back, putting both hands up and approximating fear as well as bringing himself into contact with Illya for the first time. Illya raised his hand, slipping it under Solo’s shirt at his back and quickly tapping out _Y - E - S_ in Morse code. He knew from witnessing the preparation and aftermath of all of Solo’s numerous missions of this sort with Gaby that consent- or at least agreement- was paramount to the other agent.

“Fine, fuck but you’re weird. Probably have little voices in your head telling you what to do… Jesus Christ, alright. Have your bloody peep show.” Solo was turning, all emotion carefully masked.

_“Illya, I can talk you through how to do this if you need me to. Or I can turn off the headset and not hear a word. If you want my help, call Cowboy ‘sir’ the next time you address him. If you don’t, I’ll turn it off. You can do this, Peril.”_

Gaby on the earpiece.

He’d forgotten her completely. Shame rose in his throat at the thought of what she’d heard. What she was about to hear. Shame and pain and helpless gratitude. That was what Solo meant when he mentioned hearing voices. It had been a verbal cue to her to help him. And she was giving him a choice. He could let their beautiful Chop Shop Girl coach him through how to bring off their partner, something she’d done god knows how many times, something she hated doing for an audience more than anything else that had been inflicted upon her by the evil in the world—or he could try it alone, spare her, hide his shame from his beautiful Gaby at least, and risk their cover when it became readily apparent that he’d never done this before.

“Illya?” Solo prompted, giving him an opportunity to answer Gaby.

“Yes, sir. I am ready.”

_“Okay Peril. I’ll try my best. He’s probably going to try to kiss you in a moment. Let him. Try to get lost in it. It makes it easier.”_

Illya swallowed and drew together the threads of resolution that he could muster, looking up to meet Solo’s compassion filled eyes. He couldn’t hold his gaze. Details of the room. Like the doctors had said.

Savinkov was uncomfortably close. Two guns were trained on them. There were storage crates piled up behind Solo. Possibly a broken table in the corner.

It took him by surprise when Solo’s (Forrester’s?) lips met his. Slow but insistent. A hand came up to cup the back of Illya’s neck, steadying his head. He was grateful for it. Without it he might have jerked away. It was different to the few kisses he had shared with Gaby over the years they had worked together; harder and more controlled. Solo (Forrester?) was completely in charge in a way that Gaby had never tried to be. He gasped, involuntarily.

_“That’s it. Let him. He’ll figure out how to make it so you like it.”_

Solo’s (definitely Solo) finger tightened on the back of his neck at that, and Illya was suddenly catapulted back to a thousand moments where he’d noticed the strength of Solo’s fingers, the hard, sculpted planes of his body. A thousand moments that he had put away as too confusing, too complicated, too shameful to comprehend.

In Russia, of course, even this much with another man was illegal.

He crushed that thought as irrelevant, unhelpful, and let Solo enchant him with his tongue and his hands, pulling him closer until he could feel those hard planes and the thudding of his partner’s heart. And damn Gaby but she was right. He was feeling things he’d never acknowledged before and craving more.

_“Alright. When you’re ready, go for his belt and drop to your knees. He’s going to let you take this at the pace you’re most comfortable with, so you need to initiate it.”_

Illya, half lost in the kiss, barely recognised the fear and sadness in Gaby’s voice. Vague images of how he’d seen Solo and Gaby do this with each other and various marks and one night stands over the years flickered through his mind and he resolutely placed his hands on Solo’s back, moving them from where they’d been clenched at his sides. The kiss continued. Solo shifted after a moment, and Illya felt a telltale hardness pressing into his thigh that brought with it a sudden, sharp reminder of the situation. Savinkov wasn’t going to wait forever. Steeling himself, he pulled back, hands dropping to Solo’s belt as he gracefully slid to his knees on the hard wooden floor.

This was going to become uncomfortable quickly.

“Oh, I do like you on your knees, Illya,” Solo crooned above him. That was for Gaby’s benefit, Illya realised after a moment. There were no cameras installed in this room, so she would at least be spared the visual experience of this.

_“Right, Peril. Here we go. He’ll get his pants open for you. Now get your hands on him. Just do exactly as I say and try not to think too hard about it.”_

Solo’s hands on his flies were professional and proficient where Illya’s were shaking and unsure. Thankfully, the end result happened quickly enough the Savinkov didn’t notice the uncertainty. Illya’s hands grasped Solo’s hips for a moment, almost involuntarily, taking comfort in the familiar bulk that he found there, almost suffocating on the smell of sex that he associated partly with Solo and partly with Gaby.

He took a moment to be intensely grateful that it was Solo – professional, beautiful, compassionate and experienced Solo – that he had been compelled to fellate at gunpoint.

_“Close your eyes and do exactly as I say.”_

He closed his eyes and lost himself to the mechanical instructions that were coming through his ear and the subtle cues of Solo’s body, trusting his partners to get them through this alive.

* * *

 

Damn but Illya was gorgeous. Solo had tried his hardest to crush his feelings for his partner, figuring that if the other man had been interested he would have made it clear by now. But he was an expert in finding that one thing that made anyone attractive. He had to be, for situations like this. And now circumstance compelled him to bring all of his suppressed devotion to the surface, to really look at his partner’s eyes, and mouth, and shoulders. To remember their antagonistic, sarcastic friendship. To remember the implicit trust that no other person had ever placed in him before this man and their crazy German accomplice had stumbled into his life.

Of course, there was a certain sexual allure to said German accomplice instructing their innocent Russian in the arts of debauchery in the filthiest terms in his ear, notwithstanding the inherent sexuality of the situation itself. If the situation had been different…

He’d tried to protect Illya from the seedier side of their work for as long as they’d worked together. He’d always known that the fight for Gaby’s innocence was doomed, but Illya… Illya was a more pressing case. If it had not already been made evident by his willingness to ask for help, it was achingly clear from his sloppy and clumsy movements that he’d never done this before. Not that Solo was fussy about technique, far from it—and the most important was Savnikov, who, from what he could tell, looked convinced.

At some point he’d wound his fingers into Illya’s hair, controlling his movements for him. Illya was sweating, making his fingers slip in their hold. His mouth was hot and soft and wet and utterly perfect.

Solo was rarely this conflicted about his conquests, but then this was Illya. And of course the bloody Russian had to be the exception to everything.

_“That’s it, you’re doing so well.”_

Gaby’s encouragement floated through his ears, not meant for him, but broadcast to him anyway, just as all her instructions had been. It was a strange experience, hearing everything described just seconds before it was carried out, trying to communicate with her through the rhythm of his breathing, with Illya through his body language. It probably would have made this hotter, if it hadn’t been for the crazy gun-wielding Russian and his thugs watching their every move. But he had performed for audiences before. His sexuality was the property of the state. It had been sold for much less than the price of his partner’s life. And so he closed his eyes and thought of Gaby, radiant, stretched out naked and wanting on his bed, murmuring those filthy words to him in excitement.

He knew she’d understand.

He wrenched Illya’s head back as he came, splattered over his partner’s face and chest rather than choking him and giving them away. Humiliating, but the better option at the time. _(When had sex become this calculated?)_ Illya dropped to the floor as Solo caught his breath, reaching over his partner to prop himself against the wall for a moment before tucking himself away and reaching for the shards of his persona. Matthew Forrester. Super rich American brat with a high class Russian prostitute on retainer. Arrogant, but ultimately powerless.

Angry. Although he wasn’t sure if that where his anger ended and Forrester’s began.

“So he blew me. Hope you enjoyed the show, you fucking pervert. Are you convinced he’s not KGB now? How the fuck does that even work logically?” Solo asked, trying to buy Illya time and to take attention away from him, let him recover himself. Ignoring him, like a used toy that he was no longer interested in, like Forrester would have done. (Solo would never…)

* * *

 

“Would you like to explain that to Mr. Forrester, Illya?” Savinkov had no interest in allowing himself to be distracted. Illya swallowed back the blankness that was threatening to claim him, searching his mind for something to say, some answer to that question, some way to summarise exactly how far from KGB standards he’d fallen, how his behaviour here was enough for him to be shot without court martial in his home country if they ever found out what he’d done.

A phrase his mother had said to him once swirled through his otherwise empty brain. Falling down drunk or high as he’d carried her up the stairs just days after his KGB acceptance had come through. She had suddenly turned to him, slammed him against the wall and slurred into his face, eyes unfocused and hands grasping at his shirt collar, hiccuping sobs drowning out half of her words as she spat them into his face.

He hadn’t been sure who she’d hated more in that moment, him or herself.

“In Russia, KGB are men, not whores. It is not the Russian way.” Her words from all those years ago sounded strange in English, but Mr Forrester could not be expected to understand Russian, and like a good whore, Illya would cater to his client’s every need.

“You know, that’s exactly what I said to Natalia when she told me her son was KGB! Right before I fucked her against the wall until she cried.” Savinkov chortled. Illya didn’t care. Everything was echoing. Curiously empty. Even the red mist had deserted him.

Solo was laughing on his behalf. Making their excuses. Gaby’s voice was in his ear, placating and calming and encouraging and loving. He couldn’t hear any of it over the echo of his mother’s slurred, sobbed words. Solo’s hand on his arm guided him out of the room, away from the ballroom where the bidders were congregated, towards the deck outside.

His stomach roiled as they near the exit and he bolted, barely reaching the barriers before he was vomiting into the ocean below them, trying to convince himself that the tears dripping from his eyes were caused by the retching and the salt and the wind.

* * *

 

Solo made it outside just in time to watch his partner double over the side of the ship and retch into the sea. He approached cautiously, making sure that the other man was aware of his presence before speaking.

“I'm not offended.” He tried for wry and off-beat, nonchalant, like this happened all the time. Hopefully if he didn't react like anything had happened, it would be easier for Illya to compartmentalise, to hide, to find some way of dealing with what he'd just done—what they’d done.

He ignored the voice in his head that reminded him that this was the second partner he'd had to have this conversation with. It was the part of him that reminded him of Gaby’s eyes, every time, even now. That part which died every time, which knew there was nothing that he could say to fix this.

He carefully moved closer, handing Illya a handkerchief that his partner accepted and immediately used to wipe his face and chest with shaking hands. Solo didn't blame him. When he finished, he dropped the handkerchief over the side of the ship, watching it float away on the waves. Solo didn't question it.

“Want to talk?” he offered tentatively. He knew his own process for dealing with this (whiskey, when there was time) and how Gaby would plaster over the cracks these missions always left within her (vodka and sex). But Illya… He had no idea how Illya would process this, whether he could cope, what he would need.

His partner took a breath and spoke, still staring into the dark, foaming waves below them.

“In Russia, KGB are men, not whores. It is not the Russian way. My mother said that to me. Two days after I’d been accepted.”

Solo exhaled slowly. Right. Okay. So this was the shape of the battle he was fighting.

“And in U.N.C.L.E., agents don't let their pride get in the way of their mission. You saved my life, Peril. Gaby’s too, most likely. And the mission isn’t compromised. We can get those plans and save millions. That's what matters.”

Solo tentatively reached out and covered Illya’s hand where it clenched the railing with his own, unsure of physical contact for once in his life. Usually he could tell when touch would make everything better as opposed to worse, but he'd never been able to get a solid read on Illya, so it was a shot in the dark whether he was about to suffer several broken bones.

As it turned out, he needn't have worried. Illya allowed the contact, not moving from his position staring into the water, silent. Solo allowed it, moving to stand next to his partner in silent solidarity for a moment, touching only at their hands.

“Your mother…” He asked after the silence had stretched between them for too long.

“She was a whore. After my father… after he was disgraced. She chose… His friends, they had power. They had influence. They had money. I think it was not for the money. They took her to restaurants, to theatre, cinema. They bought dresses, perfume. She was weak for the fashions of the West. Could not give them up. It was not the Russian way.”

“What happened?”

“She had sex with the wrong man. An American spy. She was arrested. I was already KGB. Youngest in their history. It would not have been right to see her. KGB do not have family. I do not believe she meant to spy, but she was stupid, and easily bought with trivialities.”

“And Savinkov?”

“A client. Sometimes she brought men to the house. Do not worry. He believes I am nothing but a whore, like she was. He would not believe that a KGB agent would do what I did.”

“Because it's not the Russian way?”

“You learn, Cowboy.”

“Well, it might not be the Russian way, but it was a damn good showing of the American way. You saved our lives in there, Peril. If our cover had been blown, we’d be leaving here overboard with bullet between our eyes. You saw those guns. We're alive because of your initiative.” He waited a moment, wondering if he dared to say it, before figuring that if he hadn’t been punched by now, it was worth the risk.

“You're not your mother, Peril.”

Illya looked up at that, finally making eye contact with Solo. His eyes were clouded, unreadable.

“Thank you, Cowboy.” He said, looking somewhere over Solo’s left shoulder. Solo smiled sadly and carefully reached out, pulling his partner into a hug. Illya went willingly, wrapping his arms tightly around Solo’s smaller frame. A moment later, the Russian moved back.

“Come, Cowboy. We should find our Chop Shop Girl. She will be worried about us.”

“Alright Peril, whatever you say.”


	6. And One: Southampton

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please accept my humblest apologies for the massive massive delay in writing and posting this. This is also coming to you unbeta-d, so all mistakes are my own.

Waverly was waiting for them when they disembarked from the cruise liner, the plans a pile of ashes on the floor of that captain’s cabin, a list of those who had bid for them already dispatched to UNCLE’s London headquarters and General Savinkov on the first plane back to the Soviet Union with an escort kindly provided by one of Illya’s contacts in the KGB. It turned out that the Soviet government didn’t take kindly to its officials operating outside of its instructions. His henchmen were the source of several of the bruises the team were sporting, but it had been worth the momentary risk to their cover to get to watch Illya punch the man in the face. 

Gaby privately hoped that they would kill him slowly, but was infinitely glad that he was out of Illya’s life for good whatever happened to him in the end. He would never be permitted to travel outside of the Soviet Union again. 

Waverly met them with his typical jocular smile and congratulated them all on a job well done before pulling Gaby aside and handing her a brown manilla folder. 

‘Another mission?’ she asked, trying to keep the disappointed and reluctance from her voice. Her ribs were bruised and her shoulder was aching. Solo had barely stopped bleeding from a wicked gash above his left ear and Illya… Illya’s eyes had yet to lose the emptiness they had taken on after what had happened in that room. She'd hoped for at least 24 hours to regroup before being sent back into the field.

‘No, Agent Teller. Your hotel reservations. We’re sending you all to Paris for four weeks’ recuperation.’ Waverly’s tone was light and delicate as always, but it was clear from his tone that he would take no argument about this. ‘Report back to the rendezvous point detailed in your briefing after that.’ 

Gaby tried not to let the relief show on her face as she turned to pass on the good news to her partners who were currently bickering over who should load their belongings into the car that UNCLE had brought for them. At least, Solo was bickering as usual. Illya was robotically starting to load the car without acknowledging their partner at all, not even with his characteristic deadpan sarcasm. His lack of reaction to the semi-transparent attempts to needle him into engagement was worrying. Gaby bit her lip. 

‘Agent Teller...’ 

She swung back instantly to face Waverly, instinctively ready for more orders despite the exhaustion and nagging concern for Illya. 

‘Take care of them.’ His face was carefully unreadable, but Gaby knew him well enough by now to read the real worry in his voice. If even their usually unconcerned boss was deviating from his constant enigmatic flippancy to allow her to read his concern, they must be more obviously frayed than she had realised. 

She nodded briskly, not trusting herself to answer without betraying more to Waverly than she wanted him to know. Not that he wouldn’t be able to read it plain as day on her face, but the principle of their boss being in the dark about some things was important, to the others at least. Even after all these years, they didn’t trust easily. Neither of them relished reporting to anyone, but they grudgingly allowed Gaby to tell Waverly what he needed to know on the unspoken understanding that she wouldn’t tell him more than was absolutely required. He returned the favour by not asking questions about their methods so long as they achieved results. 

Usually the system functioned well enough for everyone involved, but right now Gaby longed to tell the man in front of her everything, to ask him for help, or for advice, or just someone to listen to her as she tried to work things through. Outside of Solo and Illya, he was the closest thing she’d ever really had to a friend. 

But they would never forgive her if she told him what had happened on that ship. They both protected even the most irrelevant information about themselves by instinct, but telling their boss about something like that...they’d never forgive her for it and she just couldn’t do that to them. So she would just have to hope that time would let them heal and drag themselves back from the brink. 

It had to. 

She adjusted her uniform, wincing as the movement pulled on her injuries, and fixed a smile onto her face. They were going on holiday. It was cause for celebration. She’d make sure they knew that when she told them the news. It wasn’t punishment. Was it? 

__

Paris, France  
Two weeks later

Gaby was in Solo’s bed, where she’d retired predominantly by virtue of Illya still being out at whatever museum or art gallery he’d decided to frequent that evening. He’d invited her to accompany him as she sometimes did, but a night curled up with the schematics of the new Ford Mustang, a bottle of vodka and a warm body had been too tempting to resist and she’d declined. 

The hotel wasn’t overly luxurious- it wouldn’t do to draw attention to themselves- but it was far nicer than some of the places they’d stayed with UNCLE over the years, and she appreciated the little touches here. The three rooms leading off from a locked central atrium that only they shared. The soft sheets. The extra pillows stored in the wardrobe. Plenty of space to keep her toolkit and the car radio she was building close by. It was about as close to idyllic as she could imagine. 

Solo was asleep next to her when she heard the outer door swing open. He was dozing naked next to her as he only ever did when they weren’t on a mission, deliciously vulnerable. She envied how easily he could switch off sometimes, when she forgot that it was most likely the influence of training for an army that he’d never wanted to be part of, of accepting that any moment could be his last with such conviction that the constant awareness that plagued Gaby’s nights had largely dissipated into resigned determination not to let work pollute every moment. 

That said, he was still a spy, and he came awake immediately and silently when she leaned over and tapped his shoulder. He looked at her, alert and ready for danger. She motioned for him to listen. 

The movement outside didn’t sound like Illya. After so long living in one another’s pockets, sharing beds and cars and crouching on rooftops or in tiny crawlspaces, listening to them fuck (Solo) and fight (Illya) with no other sense but hearing to track if they were ok, she knew the sound of her partners better than most people ever got to know the sound of anyone. 

And what she was hearing told her that something was wrong. 

Someone was pacing. 

Illya had a lot of ticks, a lot of characteristic movements that she had learned by necessity in their first few months together to stop him from murdering Solo. His hands, usually, his fingers. Sometimes you could see something in his eyes. But he always held the rest of his body with perfect stillness when he was losing control. He never paced. She’d never known the thing inside Illya that made him explode into uncontrollable fury to animate his whole body before. So either this was Illya in a mood they had never encountered, or someone of a similar build, gait and training had gained entry to their rooms in the middle of the night. 

She swallowed and, holding Solo’s eyes the whole time, reached for the knife she kept by his bed. Her hand was sweating and her heart was in her mouth as she did so, but she wasn’t stupid. It would be suicide to confront over six foot of KGB-trained assassin unarmed. It would probably be suicide regardless, but that was besides the point.

Solo nodded as he understood, quickly wrapped a robe around himself and grabbed a weapon, fingers carefully skimming over the gun he kept on the bedside table to grasp the handle of the knife beside it. They couldn't risk alerting any backup a would-be assassin might have, and, if it was Illya and something was dreadfully wrong, having a gun in the room would not help matters. He straightened, meeting her eyes again, steely and determined, and took point ahead of her to confront whoever it was through the door. 

XxXxXx

The first thing Solo noticed on stepping through the door was the state of his partner’s hair. Instead of his usual carefully controlled style, it was standing on end, completely uncontrolled, as if the man in question had run his fingers through it over and over and over again, which to be fair he probably had.

The second thing he noticed was the eyes. Illya’s eyes were one of his favourite parts of the man, the way they lit up in those rare moments where he smiled, the way they mirrored his thoughts so openly (so terrible in a spy but so wonderful in a man), even the way they flashed in warning right before he lost himself to his rage (although that happened more rarely now he had mechanisms in place to deal with his anger before that point). But Solo had never seen his partner’s eyes so lost, so closed off to him. 

Illya froze on the spot as Solo entered, as if caught breaking in somewhere he didn’t belong. His eyes dropped quickly from Solo’s and he bit his lip, as if he felt guilty for being there. Solo was barely aware of Gaby slipping out of his room to stand beside him, just far enough away that he could feel her warmth but not her touch.He resisted the urge to look to her for reassurance. The last thing he wanted was to make Illya feel they were ganging up on him when he was so clearly unstable. Something was wrong with his partner, without question. He’d not been the same since the incident on the ship with Savinkov. Both Gaby and Solo had been waiting for something to snap. This must be it. 

What he needed now was information. As in any situation where there were people involved, if you get them talking, you figure out eventually what they want. He didn’t usually have to work so hard with his partners, of course, but they were people, the same as his marks, and Solo was nothing if not good at people. 

‘So, Peril, anything you want to talk to us about?’ he went for casual. He’d run too many cons on too many marks to remember what his natural response would be, but he figured this was the closest approximation. It certainly seemed to work, or at least to have some effect. Illya started pacing again. Gaby slid her knife onto the small table beside her and carefully arranged herself leaning against the wall, open posture, hands by her sides to show she was no threat. She had learned well, he noted absently before returning to the issue at hand. 

Tension was practically radiating from Illya. His hands were clenching and unclenching as he paced, eyes darting around the room, settling anywhere but on Solo’s. The silence held. Solo sighed internally. Nothing was ever easy. 

He took a slow step forward, placing himself in the path of Illya’s pacing. The other man stuttered and stalled in place as his path was blocked, still practically vibrating with tension and refusing to look Solo in the eye. 

‘Hey,’ Solo gentled his voice, hoping and praying that this approach would work. He never had been able to read the Russian like he could read everyone else. It was one of the things that had first fascinated him about the man. 

‘Whatever it is, you can trust us.’ he kept his voice light, despite the depth of the feeling he couldn’t help bleeding through and carefully, so carefully, reached out to touch two fingers to the back of Illya’s right hand. 

At the touch of their hands it was as if a surge of electricity had shot through Illya as he suddenly surged forwards, hands grasping the collar of Solo’s robe and lips slamming into place over his. Solo staggered back a step under the sheer force of it all, only to be held up by strong hands tight on his collar. It was overwhelming, an onslaught of passion the like of which Solo had never experienced in all of his many years and countless conquests. He could barely think beyond giving everything of himself to satisfy the need that was so blatant and open in the man in front of him, but eventually he managed to get his hands up and push. 

Illya drew back immediately, looking stunned, hands still locked in Solo’s collar as he panted just inches away, eyes still focused on a spot somewhere over Solo’s left ear. Solo took a moment, catching his breath and considering. His next words could well be the most important he would ever say. 

‘Well, Peril, I’m not going to say I expected that.’ Illya’s hands started to loosen and Solo cursed internally. Usually he was so much better at this. 

Usually he didn’t give a damn about the person he was speaking to. 

‘No, no, it’s ok. Hell, it’s more than ok, it was incredible, truly, and if you ever want to do that again I am more than happy to oblige.’ he tightened his grip to emphasise the point, ‘But I have to ask, you know I have to: what exactly is going on here?’

‘We are kissing. This is obvious.’ Illya’s answer was clipped. 

‘I can see that, Peril. What I’m more interested in is why we’re kissing? And if we’re going to be more than kissing in the near future’ Solo tried to keep his voice light and steady and to ignore the spark of interest that came with the idea of doing something more with Illya. He’d never even allowed himself to imagine it, not after Illya had told them that he had no interest in sex. Not that he’d stopped noticing the other man’s body, his eyes, the way he moved, the way he cared so deeply and hid it where he thought no-one could see. But Solo had always kept a strong check on his imagination. It had felt wrong to imagine his partner in a scenario that he would never consent to. 

It had been worse, of course, to carry it out on that ship at gunpoint with absolutely nowhere to hide. Solo quickly suppressed that line of thinking before it showed in his face and tipped the already precarious balance of the conversation into even more dangerous territory. He had more than enough practice compartmentalising. 

Illya held himself motionless for a moment longer, tension thrumming through him like a violin string, before he fell forward suddenly, dropping his face onto Solo’s neck. It was then that Solo smelled vodka. 

‘You been drinking, Peril?’ he asked carefully, bringing his arms up to his partner’s shoulders to steady him. 

‘No. I was passing a bar after I left the Louvre and I got into a fight with a man who had the wrong opinion of the work of Van Gogh. He thought they were derivative, that Van Gogh was simply a madman who couldn’t paint traditionally and so painted badly and made excuses for his failure.’

‘Well I can’t condone violence against the unsuspecting Parisian public, Peril, but if UNCLE would let me I’d happily break into the Louvre and steal every painting to protect them from the undeserving eyes of such philistines.’ Solo responded, allowing himself a slight smile. 

He felt more than heard Illya’s huff of laughter against his neck, snapping him back to the present with another swell of arousal. 

‘That is not reason I attacked him.’ Illya pulled back from Solo, keeping his hands wrapped in Solo’s robe. 

‘Were the Dutch masters not an adequate provocation? Did he also malign the Bolshoi or suggest Marx was not a saint?’ Solo tried, giving them both an easy way out of this conversation.

‘He looked like… the General. And he called me a whore.’

Silence. 

‘I did not kill him. It was difficult.’ 

Solo slowly moved his right hand up from Illya’s arm to his neck, carefully cupping his partner’s face with his hand, sliding fingers into the tousled hair. 

‘You’re not a whore, Peril. Trust me, as someone who has gotten paid for sex in information and sometimes actual cash for years, with more people than most people have had in a lifetime, you are not a whore. Do you understand?’ his tone was fierce and his hold was tight, forcing Illya to meet his eyes. Nothing was more important than convincing his partner of the truth of his words.

The most important statement he’d ever had to sell and it was the truth. How ironic. 

Illya’s eyes met Solo’s and suddenly, inexplicably, almost unrecognisably, they filled with tears. Solo almost looked away on instinct. He’d never seen his partner like this, but it was somehow too raw, too open, blinding like looking directly into the sun. 

‘They stole it from me.’ Illya whispered in Russian, sounding nothing like himself. 

‘What did they steal?’ Solo answered in English, not letting his partner retreat, keeping him in the present. 

‘All of it. You. I never… I never wanted to touch someone else like that. Never. When I was younger, in KGB, it did not matter. No attachments, no feelings, no regrets. It was the Russian way. But when I met you... and Gaby, of course... when I moved to UNCLE, it changed. I do not remember when or how, maybe was slow change, or maybe was always possible but I did not realise in time. I wanted to touch you both. I wanted you to touch me. I wanted to feel what you feel when you are together. I wanted you to be mine. He took that from me. He took it and he made it his. He made it happen for him. I wanted it and he made it ugly and dirty and shameful and his before I could ask.’ 

Solo reeled, trying to understand what he was hearing, trying to figure out what to say, what to do. Illya had wanted them. Had wanted them like he had never wanted anyone and then… He felt nauseous even thinking about it. He couldn’t let it go unanswered. 

He surged forward, capturing Illya’s lips in a blistering kiss. Illya caught on quickly and kissed back, meeting him just as fiercely, on equal terms as always. His hands slid into Illya’s hair of their own accord as strong arms came up to wrap around his back, almost crushing him with their intensity. He was only vaguely aware of them, completely focused on his lips and tongue and the man in front of him, reading his reactions carefully, giving and taking and rising and falling in response to the smallest reactions he could detect in his partner’s body language, falling into the rhythm of kissing even as a voice in the back of his head reminded him that this was so much more important than any other kiss because this was Illya breaking and he had to put him back together, had to prove that this thing between them that could have been hadn’t been strangled by their encounter with Savinkov, that there was still something there worth doing. 

‘I hate to interrupt, but may I join you?’ Gaby was suddenly much closer than she had been, arm slung around Solo’s waist as she smiled almost shyly up at Illya. Solo blinked in shock for a moment. He’d been so focused on Illya that he had almost forgotten that Gaby was there, watching over them silently as she so often did. 

‘You would wish to…? Even after…’ Illya refocused on her. 

‘Whatever you are thinking of saying to end that sentence, don’t. I love you, you idiot. Nothing you’ve done has changed that. I would happily have done this years ago if I thought you wanted to. And as for what happened on that ship…’ The men both froze but she carried on regardless, steel in her eyes, their little firecracker, forcing them to face up to it as unflinchingly as she did.

‘You and I have loved Solo for years and we’ve both seen and heard him do as much countless times, sometimes more. It never changed how we feel about him and it sure as hell won’t change how either of us feel about you. ‘I hope that bastard rots in hell for forcing you to do that. You deserved the chance to figure it out for yourself and come to us when you were ready, when you wanted to, but what he did wasn’t your fault and it doesn’t make you anything other than incredibly brave. You saved our lives on that goddamned ship.’

She stretched out with her free hand and took Illya’s, interlacing their fingers as she reached up to kiss him. Solo tightened his grip on her waist. While he and Illya would always be complicated, because of their origins and their natures and now because of what had happened on that fucking ship, Illya and Gaby had always seemed obvious, straight-forward. There was something almost inevitable in how they orbited one another, constantly drawn together in a way that Solo was reasonably sure was completely unconscious and often unnoticed by both parties. 

Solo hadn’t really understood why Gaby had ever come to his bed outside of the aftermath of those missions until they’d found out that Illya didn’t do sex. It had taken him a long time to understand that he wasn’t just a convenient replacement in her eyes, that they had their own relationship that existed on its own merits, inextricably meshed within the complex of ties that made up their small team. Before, years ago, he’d have worried that watching them kiss would make him jealous, that they would be so right together that there would be no room for him in between them any more, but watching them now he felt nothing of the sort, just a crashing wave of pleasure at how perfectly they fit with one another. 

Gaby eased back slightly, keeping her hand anchored on Illya, almost to reassure him that she wasn't leaving, that she was still there. 

‘And as for the General ruining your first time with Solo, well, I think you’ll find he’s a different person when he’s not working, if you’re interested in finding out?’ She let the innuendo in her tone convey her full meaning. 

‘Only if you will accompany us.’ Illya responded. Gaby smiled and reached up, grabbing the back of his neck to drag him down into another kiss, slower and more tender. 

‘Of course. It would be my pleasure’

**Author's Note:**

> French Translation: 'Yes. Is it a problem?'


End file.
